Lincoln 







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457 
.92 
1907A 



LINCOL 






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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
From a photogranh {probably 1864) 



LIJVCOLJV 

Life, Speeches 
and Anecdotes 




The Old 
Press* 




Greek. 

G/iicaao 

Boston 



h4^ 



o 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

APH 20 1907 

' A iopynght Entry 
ciiss A XX<J.,NO. 
COPY B. 




Lincolniana 



COPYRIGHT, 1907 
BY SHERWIN CODY 






-\_^ 



CONTENTS 

^ .^ ': .■ . Page 

Lincoln, Life 7 

Ideal American Hero. . . . .' 7 

Lincoln's Mother. ....;.'... 10 

Journey to Indiana 11 

What Lincoln Read 14 

Strikes Out for Himself 18 

Politics and Love 19 

Captain in the Black Hawk War 21 

His First Speech 22 

Studies Law 23 

"A House Divided Against Itself" (Speech). 26 

Elected President 27 

Lincoln's Character ... 23 

Assassination 31 



Page 
His Life at the White House 33 

Lincoln's Domestic Life 37 

An Autobiographic Letter 41 

Personal Appearance. •. 43 

Letters and Recollections 44 

Speeches 66 

Note for Law Lecture 66 

Reply to Douglas at Peoria 68 

Farewell Address at Springfield, 1861 74 

First Inaugural 75 

Emancipation Proclamation 89 

Gettysburg Address 91 

Second Inaugural 92 

Anecdotes 95 

Lincoln's Pardons 95 

Lincoln's Own Stories 102 

Miscellaneous Anecdotes 108 



LINCOLN 

Every man should have a hero. If there is any 
one who confesses he has none, do not trust him; 
he has no high ideals, he does not wish to be greater 
or better than he is, and it is certain that he is in a 
fair way to become one of earth's degenerates. 

There is no nation that has ever attained greatness 
without its list of heroes. Greece had Achilles and 
Socrates and Demosthenes, Rome had Caesar, France 
Napoleon, Germany Bismarck, England Alfred the 
Great and Gladstone. America has her heroes, too, 
whose names have been given to states and towns 
and streets all over the land, until there is no one 
who has not heard them often. Washington was 
truly the Father of his Country, Franklin stands for 
American wit and American common sense, and 
Lincoln, born in poverty, brought up in a wilderness 
full of ignorance, we worship as the savior of the 
Nation. 

Lincoln the Ideal American Hero. 

Lincoln is an ideal hero for Americans, because he 
came from the very lowest, poorest, meanest stock, 
and rose to the very highest office we have to bestow. 
As a boy and as a young man he was so like one of 
us that there are few who cannot say they have as 
many natural gifts or as many opportunities as he 
had. He was plain, he was honest, he had good 



8 LINCOLN 

health, and he was determined to get along in the 
world. He had his faults, too. He did not like to 
work any better than you do, he had a weakness 
for loafing and telling stories, and he was not as 
polite and polished in manners as his wife would 
have liked him to be. Even when he became Presi- 
dent he was worth but a few hundred dollars, all 
invested in his small house and plain furniture in 
Springfield. 

But money does not make a man, polished man- 
ners do not make him, even education does not make 
great a man whose soul is small. Lincoln had but 
a few months' schooling at a district school, and 
though he read a good many books and studied law 
until he was fairly skilled in his profession, his self- 
education was no greater than may easily be at- 
tained by any average American. 

Lincoln was great because he looked at every- 
thing so honestly and with such healthy common 
sense. He never felt himself above even the humblest 
of his fellows ; and though he knew he could think 
more clearly and act more vigorously than most of 
the men he met, he did not fancy that to be a cause 
for "putting on airs." He was always the same Lin- 
coln, whether President in the White House or a 
poor railsplitter on a Western farm. That made the 
people love him. They wanted him to be great, 
because they seemed all to share in his greatness; 
they wished him to hold high office because they 
felt they could trust their most difficult problems to 
him; and they knew that however high he rose he 



LIFE 9 

would be just as ready to talk with them and help 
them as when he was indeed one of themselves. 

But much as his friends liked him and trusted 
him, no one knew how really great he was until sud- 
denly he was made President of the Union, just as 
the Union seemed falling to pieces. He was like a 
giant rock that has rolled down from a mountain 
into the sea. The wind blew and the waters dashed 
over it, and though it had come down so suddenly 
it seemed as if it had been there forever. The 
drowning and the hopeless clung to it, the boats all 
anchored under its lee, and though the timid pre- 
dicted the rock would fall on them and crush them 
all, it stood unmoved till the gale was over. 

Here is a hero whom we all may imitate. If we 
have gifts and opportunities that he had not, let us 
be thankful and make the most of them as he would 
have done. But if we are no better off than he, as 
is the case with many of us, let us take courage and 
fight manfully on as he did; and while we may not 
be great enough to fill as great a post as he did, in 
whatever place our lot may fall we may act hon- 
estly, nobly, and honestly, as he would have done. 
This is what it means to choose an honest hero and 
shape our lives after his. Caesar sacrificed his coun- 
try to his ambition, and Napoleon, though a very 
great man, was a very bad one. Lincoln fought a 
bloody war, but, unlike Napoleon, he fought to save. 
Even Napoleon's friends came in time to hate him. 
To-day the South, who once thought Lincoln their 
arch-enemy, have learned in a measure to look on 
him as their best friend; and he is no longer the 



10 LINCOLN 

hero merely of the West, or merely of the North; 
he is the hero of the whole nation, and perhaps some 
day he will be the hero of other nations that have 
not yet heard his name. 

******** 

Poor White Trash. 

Lincoln was assassinated more than forty years 
ago, but it is still difficult to speak of him without 
being tempted to pronounce a sort of funeral eulogy 
over him. We shall understand him better, how- 
ever, if we follow the homely details of his early 
life. 

Abraham Lnicoln was born in Hardin county, 
Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His parents belonged 
to that class known in the South as "poor white 
trash." Lincoln himself was very reserved about 
his origin and his early life. When he was nom- 
inated for the Presidency one of the first newspaper 
men to interview him was J. L. Scripps of the Chi- 
cago Tribune, who wished to prepare a campaign 
biography of him. "Why, Scripps," said he, "it is 
a great piece of folly to try to make anything out 
of me or my early life. It can all be condensed into 
a single sentence, and that sentence you will find 
in Gray's 'Elegy,' 

'The short and simple annals of the poor.* 
That's all my life, and that's all you or any one 
else can make out of it." 

Lincoln's Mother. 

Lincoln seldom spoke of his mother, Nancy Hanks, 
as she is usually called. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law 



LIFE 11 

partner, says in his biography that only once did the 
future President refer in his hearing to his origin. 
"It was about 1850, when he and I were driving in 
his one-horse buggy to the court at Menard county, 

lUinois During the trip he spoke for the 

first time of his mother, dwelHng on her character- 
istics, and mentioning or enumerating what quahties 
he inherited from her. He said, among other things, 
that she was the daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well- 
bred but obscure Virginia farmer or planter; and he 
argued that from this source came his power of 
analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, 
and all the qualities that distinguished him from the 
other members and descendants of the Hanks fam- 
ily." 

His grandfather on his father's side was also 
named Abraham. This Lincoln (or Linkhorn) went 
from Virginia to Kentucky in 1780, and two years 
later was killed by Indians, "not in battle," his 
grandson tells us, "but by stealth when he was 
laboring to open a farm in the forest." Abraham's 
son Thomas, father of the President, was a remark- 
ably shiftless man, and was always moving from 
one farm to another, leaving his debts behind him. 
Lincoln worked on the farm with his father until 
he was grown up; but he had little respect for him, 
and in later years did not often see him. 

The Journey to Indiana. 

Abraham had an older sister Sarah. When she 
was seven years old they moved to Indiana, where 
in the wilderness his father had purchased a farm 



12 LINCOLN 

of the Government for two dollars an acre. He 
brought his carpenter's tools and a quantity of whis- 
key down Rolling Fork Creek on a crazy flatboat he 
had built himself. When he reached the Ohio River 
the boat upset one day, and all his goods went to 
the bottom; but he got them out again, by dint of 
patient fishing; and leaving them in care of a farmer 
and selling his boat, he secured his farm and walked 
back to get his family, whom he brought on in a 
borrowed wagon. In the woods they built what was 
called a half-faced camp, being enclosed on all sides 
but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. 
In this hovel they lived for a year, at the end of 
which time friends and relatives joined them, to 
whom they gave up the "half-faced camp," moving 
into a more pretentious cabin. "It was of hewed 
logs, and was eighteen feet square. It was high 
enough to admit of a loft, where Abe slept, and to 
which he ascended each night by means of pegs 
driven in the wall. The rude furniture was in keep- 
ing with the surroundings. Three-legged stools an- 
swered for chairs. The bedstead, made of poles 
fastened in the cracks of the logs on one side, and 
supported by a crotched stick driven in the ground 
on the other, was covered with skins, leaves and 
old clothes. A table of the same finish as the stools, 
a few pewter dishes, a Dutch oven, and a skillet com- 
pleted the household outfit." 

Here Lincoln spent his boyhood. One day they 
had only roasted potatoes for dinner. As usual the 
father asked a blessing. Little Abe looked up, and 



LIFE 13 

remarked irreverently but very drolly, "Dad, I call 
these mighty poor blessings." 

The boy was somewhat mischievous, too. He 
used to like to go coon hunting with the other boys. 
There was, however, a little yellow dog that would 
always bark when they tried to slip away. One 
night, to prevent that, they carried the dog with 
them. They got their coon and killed him, and 
then for the fun of the thing sewed the coon's hide 
on the yellow dog. The dog didn't like the operation, 
and as soon as he was let loose made a beeline for 
home. Bigger dogs, scenting coon, followed him, 
and, perhaps mistaking him for a real coon, killed 
him. The next morning Thomas Lincoln, the father, 
found his yellow dog lying dead in the yard with the 
coonskin on him. He was very angry, but the boys 
knew that yellow Joe would never sound the call 
again when they started on a coon hunt. 

Scarcely two years had passed when Nancy Lin- 
coln died of what was called "the milk-sick." Their 
neighbors Betsey and Thomas Sparrow died of the 
same disease, and even the cattle were affected by 
this strange sickness. Mrs. Lincoln knew she was 
going to die, and placing her feeble hands on little 
Abe's head she said, "Be good to father and sister" ; 
to all she said, "Be good to one another," and ex- 
pressed the hope that they might live, as they had 
been taught by her, to love their kindred and wor- 
ship God. "She had done her work in this world. 
Stoop-shouldered, thin-breasted, sad, — at times mis- 
erable, — without prospect of any betterment in her 
condition, she passed from earth, little dreaming of 



14 LINCOLN 

the grand future that lay in store for the ragged, 
hapless little boy who stood at her bedside in the 
last days of her life." 

A Dreary Life. 

What a life little Abe and his sister lived after 
this can be better imagined than told. It was dreary 
in the extreme. But in the spring Thomas Lincoln 
went back to Kentucky and married an old sweet- 
heart, Sally Bush, who was a widow. This is the 
way Thomas proposed : "Miss Johnston, I have no 
wife and you no husband. I came a-purpose to 
marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you 
knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose; and 
if you're willin', let it be done straight off." She 
replied that she could not marry at once, as she had 
some debts to pay. He said, "Give me the list of 
them." He got the list and paid them that evening. 
The next morning they were married. 

The new Mrs. Lincoln had a good stock of house- 
hold furniture, and took it with her to Indiana. For 
the first time in their lives Sarah and Abe had a 
comfortable bed to sleep on. They had also found 
a new mother, and learned to love her even more 
than their own. She also brought into the family hef 
own three children, two girls and a boy, with whom 
the Lincolns lived in perfect accord. She was espe- 
cially kind to Abe, and when she was' old and pen- 
niless he gave her a farm, on which she died in 1869, 
five years after he himself had gone to his account. 

What Lincoln Read. 

So the boy grew up, attending school a few months 



LIFE 15 

each year, working on his father's farm, and reading 
when he could, often lying at full length on the floor 
before the fire, which gave the only light, for the 
Lincolns were too poor to afford candle or lamp. 
There were few books in those days. Lincoln read 
the Bible, "Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," 
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a "History of the 
United States," and Weems' "Life of Washington." 
The last-named book he borrowed from a close- 
fisted neighbor named Josiah Crawford. He laid it 
on a little shelf in the cabin, near which there hap- 
pened to be a crack between the logs. One night a 
storm came up and the covers of the book got wet. 
Crawford, whom the boys called "Old Blue Nose," 
assessed the injury at seventy-five cents. Abe did 
not have the money, but set to work and pulled 
fodder for three days to pay off the debt. 

He was over six feet before he was seventeen, and 
when he attained his growth he was six feet four 
inches, and proportionately strong. He was a great 
story-teller, and always had his joke; but he liked 
to read and study much better than he did to work. 
The farmers sometimes thought him lazy, for "his 
chief delight was to lie down under the shade of 
some inviting tree to read and study. At night, 
lying on his stomach in front of the open fireplace, 
with a piece of charcoal he would cipher on a broad 
wooden shovel. When the latter was covered over 
on both sides he would take his father's drawing 
knife or a plane and shave it off clean, ready for the 
next day." Says his cousin John Hanks : "When 
Abe and I returned to the house from work he 



16 LINCOLN 

would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn 
bread, sit down, take a book, cock his legs up as 
high as his head, and read. We grubbed, plowed, 
mowed, and worked together barefooted in the field. 
Whenever Abe had a chance in the field while at 
work, or at the house, he would stop and read." 

One of Lincoln's early delights was going to mill, 
where was ground the corn which formed the prin- 
cipal food of the family. The mill had a long arm, 
to which each customer hitched his horse, and 
driving it round and round, ground his own corn. 
One day Lincoln's turn did not come till nearly night. 
The old flea-bitten gray mare was rather lazy, and 
as he sat on the arm he kept urging her to go faster, 
crying, "Get up, you old hussy." The mare bore it 
for a while, but suddenly, in the midst of one of 
these exclamations, she let her hoof fly and hit him 
in the forehead, knocking him senseless. The miller 
picked up the lifeless boy and sent for his father, 
who came and took him home in a wagon. He lay 
all night unconscious, but toward morning began to 
show signs of recovering. As his blood began to 
flow through his veins once more, he awoke and 
blurted out, "you old hussy," thus finishing the 
phrase he had begun when the mare's hoof struck 
him. He always regarded this as a remarkable oc- 
currence in his life. 

Pioneer Social Life. 

The place in which Lincoln's early life was spent 
was known as Gentryville. The social life of the 
people centered about the church, which they would 
often go eight or ten miles to attend, sometimes 



LIFE 17 

staying over until the next day. Says Mr. Herndon, 
"The old men starting from the fields and out of 
the woods would carry their guns on their shoul- 
ders and go with the women. They dressed in deer- 
skin pants, moccasins, and coarse hunting shirts — 
the latter usually fastened with a belt or leather 
strap Arriving at the house where the services 
were to be held they would recite to each other 
thrilling stories of their hunting exploits, and smoke 
their pipes with the old ladies. They were treated, 
and treated each other, with the utmost kindness. 
A bottle of liquor, a pitcher of water, sugar, and 
glasses were set out for them ; also a basket of 
apples or turnips, with now and then a pie or cake. 
Thus they regaled themselves until the preacher 
found himself in condition to begin. The latter, 
having also partaken freely of the refreshments 
provided, would "take off his collar, read his text, 
and preach and pound till the sweat, produced alike 
by his exertions and the exhilarating effects of the 
toddy, rolled from his face in great drops. Shaking 
hands and singing ended the service." 

At nineteen Lincoln grew restless and wanted to 
leave his father's home ; but a friend advised against 
it, and soon after he had an opportunity to join 
another friend in taking a flat-boat loaded with meat 
and grain on a trading expedition to New Orleans. 
Here on a second journey made a few years later 
he attended a slave-market. He saw a girl put on 
sale. The auctioneer trotted her up and down, and 
the men pinched her fiesh and observed her gait as 
if she had been a fine-bred mare instead of a human 



18 LINCOLN 

being. Turning away from the scene in disgust, he 
then and there conceived a deep-rooted hatred for 
the institution of slavery ; and though afterward he I 
showed great tolerance toward the slave-owners, 1 
and never wished to deprive them of their property 
without compensation, he felt that the institution of 
slavery was a violation of the essential spirit of the 
Declaration of Independence. 

Soon after his return his father removed with all 
his family to Macon county, Illinois. One incident 
of the journey is worth relating. They took a little 
dog with them, which trotted along behind the ox 
wagon. One day it fell behind and failed to catch 
up till after they had crossed a stream. Soon they 
saw him on the opposite bank, whining and jumping 
about in great distress. As the stream was partly 
frozen and the water was running over the edges of 
the ice, the dog was afraid to cross. The majority 
decided that it was not worth while to go back 
merely for a dog, "but," says Lincoln himself in j 
telling the story, *T could not endure the idea of i 
abandoning even a dog. Pulling oflf shoes and socks j 
I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned ( 
with the shivering animal under my arm. His frantic ' 
leaps of joy and other evidences of a dog's grati- 
tude amply repaid me for all the exposure I had 
undergone." 

Strikes Out for Himself. 

He helped his father and the others hew out the ; 
logs from which their house was to be built, and 
split the rails for the fences; but as he had now 



LIFE 19 

become of age, he felt that it was time to strike out 
for himself. 

He worked within sight of home for a while, and 
then accepted an offer from one Denton Offut to 
take a boat load of stock and provisions down to 
New Orleans. He and John Hanks made their way 
to Springfield. As Mr. Offut had no boat ready, 
they set to work and built one themselves. At New 
Salem their boat stuck on a dam, where it hung for 
a day and a night. It was partly filled with water. 
They unloaded it, but the water kept it from clearing 
the dam, though one end projected over the edge. 
Lincoln devised the simple expedient of rolling the 
barrels forward and boring a hole in the bottom of 
the boat at the end which stuck over the dam. Of 
course the water ran out and the boat went over 
easily. Offut thought this was wonderful ingenuity, 
and said he would build a steamboat which should 
have rollers for shoals and dams, runners for ice, 
and with Lincoln in charge "By thunder, she'd have 
to go." 

A little farther down they had to take on some 
pigs. The swine refused to be driven aboard, 
always running back just as they seemed to be on 
the point of going over the gangplank. Lincoln con- 
iceived the idea of sewing up their eyes; but after 
jthat was done they still refused to go, and they had 
to catch the pigs one by one and carry them aboard. 

Politics and Love. 

On his return from New Orleans he promised to 
act as clerk for Denton Offut, who proposed to open 



20 LINCOLN 

a store at New Salem. He described himself at 
this time as a piece of floating driftwood, that after 
the winter of deep snow had come down the river 
with the freshet ; borne along by the swelling waters, 
and aimlessly floating about, he had accidentally 
lodged at New Salem. Here he was to make his 
first eflforts as a speaker and a politician; here he 
met the girl with whom he fell in love, whose early 
death first called out that melancholy which always 
brooded over him, and made him the saddest as well 
as the drollest of men. Here, too, he first made his 
reputation for spinning yarns, with which he was 
always ready. He also gained the respect of the 
whole town by his skill in wrestling. It happened 
that a few miles southwest of the village was a 
strip of woods known as Clary's Grove. The boys 
who lived down there were the terrors of the whole 
region. Yet they were also ever ready to fight for 
the defenceless, or for any one who could command 
their respect. Their leader was Jack Armstrong, 
under whom they were in the habit of "cleaning out" 
New Salem whenever his word went forth. Offut 
maintained that Lnicoln "was a better man" than 
Jack Armstrong, and arranged a bet with "Bill" 
Clary. The contest was to be a friendly one fairly 
conducted, and all New Salem turned out to see it' 
Even to this day the people of New Salem (no\v 
scattered far and wide, for New Salem no longer 
exists) tell the exciting scenes of that day; how 
Lincoln, suddenly enraged at a suspicion of foul 
tactics, fairly lifted the great bully from the ground 
by the throat and shook him like a rag; and how 



LIFE 21 

from that day the Clary Grove boys were his firm 
friends and supporters. 

Lincoln at this time weighed two hundred and 
fourteen pounds, and had arms so long and muscles 
so wiry that he could throw a cannon ball or maul 
farther than any one else, while we hear that he 
once raised a barrel of whiskey from the ground 
and drank from the bunghole. 

But this young giant had a strong head and a soft 
heart, and many friends of a character very different 
from the Clary Grove boys. Among these was Men- 
tor Graham, the schoolmaster, on whose advice he 
hunted up a man named Ganer, who was said to be 
the owner of a Kirkham's grammar. After a walk 
of several miles he returned to the store where he 
was clerking, with the book under his arm. Some- 
times he would lie at full length on the counter, his 
head propped up by rolls of calico; or he would 
steal away to the shade of a nearby tree, where he 
tried patiently and persistently to master the rules of 
grammar. How well he succeeded in mastering the 
English language we may know when we remember 
that in the Gettysburg speech we have one of the 
most perfect specimens of oratory in the history of 
any language. 

Goes to the Black Hawk War. 

Lincoln did not make a good clerk. Offut's store 
failed, and Lincoln enlisted for the Black Hawk 
war. He was elected captain of the company, an 
honor which he appreciated; but he knew little of 
military tactics. Once when he was marching the 



22 LINCOLN 

company twenty abreast they came to a narrow gate. 
Lincoln could not remember the military order for 
"turning the company endwise." The situation was 
becoming decidedly embarrassing when he faced the 
lines and called, "Halt! This company will break 
ranks for two minutes and form again on the other 
side of the gate." The company did as ordered, 
and thought none the less of their leader. His com- 
pany was somewhat unruly, and for their misdeeds 
he was once deprived of his sword for a day, and 
at another time he was made to carry a wooden 
sword for two days. 

His First Speech. 

When he came home he decided to run for the 
legislature. This is the way in which he opened his 
campaign. 

"Fellow Citizens, I presume you all know who I 
am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
solicited by many friends to become a candidate for 
the legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like 
the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national 
bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement 
system and a high protective tariff. These are my 
sentiments and political principles. H elected I 
shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same." 
Of the 208 votes in New Salem, Lincoln received all 
but three. He was not elected this time, however. 
It was the only time he was ever defeated at the 
hands of the people. 

He now bought an interest in a country store, and 
started in business for himself; but he did not sue- 



LIFE 23 

ceed, and accumulated debts which he was many 
years in paying off in full. He paid every penny he 
owed, however. 

Studies Law. 

As he had nothing to do after the failure of the 
business he decided to study law. He arranged to 

'get board on credit, borrowed some law books, and 
went to work. His friends remember him at this 
time lying on his back under a tree, putting his feet 
up the tree, as he pored over a volume of Chitty 

;or Blackstone. He had been appointed postmaster, 
but this took little of his time, and as he went about 
carrying the letters in his hat, he was able to give 
most of his thought and attention to the study of law. 
He also did odd jobs for the farmers. One day 
when he was splitting rails a friend came out and 
told him he had been appointed deputy surveyor. 
As he himself was a Whig and he knew the man 
who offered the appointment to be a Democrat, he 
first asked if he were to be perfectly free to express 
his political opinions should he accept the office. 
Said he, "li my sentiments or even expression of 
them is to be abridged in any way I would not 
have it or any other office." He was wretchedly 
poor and overwhelmed with debt, while trying to 
study law under the most adverse circumstances, yet 
he had the courage to assert his independence ! What 
better proof that he was an honest man to the very 
core! 

He knew nothing of surveying; but he soon 
learned it, as he did everything to which he turned 



24 LINCOLN 

his mind. From that time he was always able to earn 
a comfortable living. 

His Political Career. 

The subsequent events of his life may be briefly 
told. He was elected to the legislature, and was 
re-elected a number of times. As soon as he was 
able he opened a law office in Springfield, where he 
continued in practice until he was elected President. 
He was for one term a member of Congress. 

As a lawyer he was not great in the sense that 
Webster was, but he had a commonsense, straight- 
forward way of stating his case that always gained 
the confidence of judge and jury. He never took 
up a case unless he believed it was right, and many 
a poor man or woman's cause he pleaded for nothing. 

When the Republican party v^as organized in 1856, 
Lincoln, though nearly fifty years of age, was merely 
a fairly successful lawyer and local politician. He 
was ambitious, and wished to be sent to the United 
States Senate, but he was unknown outside of Illi- 
nois. At the State convention that year he stated 
his views, but his friends persuaded him to withdraw 
what he had said for the time being. Two years 
passed. In 1858 he was nominated by the Repub- 
licans as their candidate for United States Senator. 
Stephen Douglas was nominated by the Democrats. 
Lincoln knew he would be nominated, and had pre- 
pared his speech and had showed it to a number of 
friends. They all advised him to omit the first para- 
graph, told him it would cost him his election, and 
that in every way it was unwise. He replied quietly. 



LIFE 25 

"Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. 
The time has come when these sentiments should be 
uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down 
because of this speech, then let me go down linked 
to the truth — let me die in the advocacy of what is 
just and right." When he spoke those words he 
was no longer an ambitious politician; he had begun 
to be great, as he had never been before ; for that 
first made it possible for him to become President, 
or rather, let us say, those firm, honest words first 
convinced thinking men that here was the one man 
the nation could trust in its hour of need. The 
famous joint debate with Douglas followed, and 
Douglas was elected Senator ; but already Lincoln 
looked forward to the Presidency. 

To understand what he did, and why he is so 
great, we must consider the conditions and the 
times. The question of slavery no longer interests 
us, for it has been settled forever. But in 1858 it 
was the great question for the nation. The South 
wanted slavery, felt that it could not exist without 
it, and was determined to stick to it under all cir- 
cumstances. In the North there was a small but 
very active party of Abolitionists that hated it, and 
was determined to fight it to the bitter end. Most 
of the people in the North did not believe in slavery, 
but wished to let the Southern people have their own 
way. So for fifty years the great men in Congress 
wrangled and struggled to find some compromise, 
some halfway plan that would satisfy both North 
and South. Henry Clay had his plan; Webster de- 
livered some of his greatest speeches in this turbu- 



26 LINCOLN 

lent discussion. Just here a new question arose. 
The South said, We are tired of this fight. Unless 
you let us alone we will withdraw from the Union — 
we will secede. Webster's greatest speech was made 
on the proposition that no state could withdraw from 
the Union. 

"A House Divided Against Itself/" 

Such were the conditio'ns when Lincoln stood up 
before the convention at Springfield, 111., and said: 

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 
If we could first know where we are, and whither 
we are tending, we could better judge what to do and 
how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year 
since a policy was initiated with the avowed object 
and confident promise of putting an end to slavery 
agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 
agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until 
a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house 
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
solved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 
place it where the public mind will rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or 
its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, 
North as well as South." 



LIFE 27 

What Lincoln said was true. There could be no 
peace till the battle had been fought out and slavery 
had won or been beaten and driven from the coun- 
try. Lincoln did not wish war; but if war must 
come he was ready for it. 

Elected President. 

After the Douglas debates he made a great speech 
at the Cooper Union, in New York, at which William 
Cullen Bryant presided; and from this moment he 
knew that he might become President. He was 
elected in 1860, and was inaugurated March 4, 1861. 

At that time it seemed as if the country was fall- 
ing to pieces, that the great and glorious nation 
founded by Washington and Franklin and Adams 
and Patrick Henry and the rest was about to come 
to an end. Less than six weeks after Lincoln en- 
tered the White House, on April 14, 1861, Fort 
Sumter surrendered. War had begun ; brother was 
fighting brother; one after another the Southern 
states withdrew and set up a government of their 
own. At first Lincoln did not very well comprehend 
the gigantic task laid upon him ; but he gradually 
realized it, and when he sent his second annual 
message to Congress he could say, "Fellow citizens, 
we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and 
this administration will be remembered in spite of 
ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance 
can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial 
through which we pass will light us down, in honor 
or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we 
are for the Union. The world will not forget that 



28 LINCOLN 

we say this. We know how to save the Union. The 
world knows we know how to save it. We, even 
we, here — hold the power and bear the responsibility. 
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom 
to the free — honorably alike in what we give and 
what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly 
lose, the last, best hope of earth." 

Lincoln's Character. 

And this was the spirit in which he himself pro- 
ceeded to do what he conceived to be his duty. 
"Our common country is in great peril, demanding 
the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a 
speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of govern- 
ment is saved to the world; its beloved history and 
cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy 
future fully assured and rendered inconceivably 
grand. . . . 

"I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I 
am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when- 
ever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. 
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, 
and I shall adopt new views so fast as they are 
shown to be true views." 

In a letter to Reverdy Johnson he said, "I am a pa- 
tient man-^always willing to forgive on Christian 
terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for 
repentance. Still, I must save this government, if 
possible. What I cannot do, of course, I will not 
do; but it may as well be understood, once for 
all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving, any 
available card unplayed." 



LIFE 29 

In such utterances we see how cool and calm he 
was. He did not get nervous or excited, he never 
tried to do more than he could, and after days of 
darkness and doubt and defeat, victory came at last, 
the nation was saved, and peace now unites the 
whole country in a common brotherhood. 

During the time of his Presidency, Lincoln seldom 
wrote to his friends, or indulged in any pleasures 
or business of his own ; but he did tell a great many 
stories to those who came to see him. It is said 
that in 1862, when the North was plunged in gloom 
by repeated defeats, an Ohio Congressman went to 
see Lincoln, who at once began a funny story. 

"Mr. President," said the Congressman, "I did 
not come here this morning to hear stories; it is 
too serious a time !" 

"Ashley," replied Lincoln quickly, "sit down! I 
respect you, as an earnest, sincere man. You can- 
not be more anxious than I have been, constantly, 
since the beginning of the war; and I say to you 
now, that were it not for this occasional vent, I 
should die !" 

Nothing endeared President Lincoln so much to 
the hearts of the people as his tenderness toward the 
unfortunate. He was always pardoning deserters 
and spies condemned to death. To a friend he once 
said, "Some of our generals complain that I impair 
discipline and subordination in the army by my 
pardons and respites, but it makes me rested, after 
a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse 
for saving a man's life." 

A father once came to Lincoln to intercede for 



30 LINCOLN 

the life of his s®n. Lincoln found it impossible to 
grant a direct pardon, but wrote, "Job Smith is not 
to be shot till further orders from me." The anxious 
father was not satisfied with this and begged for 
something more definite. "Well, my old friend," said 
Lincoln, "I see you are not very well acquainted 
with me. If your son never looks on death till fur- 
ther orders come from me to shoot him, he will live 
to be a great deal older than Methusaleh." 

Once when Lincoln had pardoned twenty-four de- 
serters at one time, all of whom were sentenced to be 
shot, one of his generals objected that "Mercy to the 
few is cruelty to the many." Lincoln replied, "My 
general, there are already too many weeping widows 
in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me 
to add to the number, for I won't do it." 

The war was fought out during Lincoln's first term 
as President. Grant won his victories in the West, 
at Vicksburg and other places, and then led the army 
against Richmond, forcing the surrender of Lee. 
Lincoln's renomination was a foregone conclusion; 
but to the convention he said simply that he knew 
of no reason why he was a better man for the 
Presidency than many others, but like the old Dutch 
farmer, he thought it best "not to swop horses while 
crossing a stream." 

When triumphantly reelected, he turned to the 
South with words of kindness and affection, bidding 
his misguided brethren to come back in peace. "With 
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, 
let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the na- 



LIFE 31 

tion's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle and for his widow and his orphans, to do 
all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting 
peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

Assassination. 

Thus he spoke in his inaugural address. Only a 
few weeks later, on the 14th of April, the anniversary 
of the surrender of Fort Sumter, he was assassinated 
by Wilkes Booth, the actor. Booth was a hot- 
headed young man, and with other Southern 
sympathizers formed a plot to assassinate all the 
chief men and overthrow the government. Lincoln 
had gone to the theater with friends for an evening's 
relaxation. He occupied a box, into the back of 
which Booth made his way. At what he conceived 
to be the dramatic moment he shot the President, 
and leaped upon the stage. Unfortunately for him 
he caught his foot in the flag which draped the box 
and sprained his ankle. Nevertheless he stalked 
across the stage, exclaiming in melodramatic fash- 
ion, ''Sic semper tyrannis" "So ever with tyrants !" 
At first the people thought this part of the play; 
but when they understood what had been done all 
was confusion. 

When the news was flashed over the country that 
Lincoln had been assassinated, it seemed as if a sud- 
den pall and gloom had fallen on the land, as when it 
becomes suddenly dark at midday, and people won- 
der if the world is coming to an end. For four 
years the nation had rested on Lincoln, depending 
on him to carry it through ; and now it seemed as if 



32 LINCOLN 

the glad fruits of the victories of a four years' war 
were about to be lost, and the country would fall 
into confusion and anarchy once more. 

But gradually it was found that Lincoln's spirit 
was as powerful after his death as it had ever been 
before; and it has been growing stronger ever since, 
until we realize that no small part of our country's 
greatness today is due to him. 

The President's Life at the White House. 

John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries and 
later Roosevelt's secretary of state, has given us an 
interesting description of the President's life at the 
White House during the period of war. 

"The President rose early, as his sleep was light 
and capricious. In the summer, when he lived at 
the Soldiers' Home, he would take his frugal break- 
fast and ride into town in time to be at his desk at 
eight o'clock. He began to receive visits nominally 
at ten o'clock, but long before that hour struck the 
doors were besieged by anxious crowds, through 
whom the people of importance. Senators and Mem- 
bers of Congress, elbowed their way after the fashion 
which still survives. On days when the Cabinet 
met — Tuesdays and Fridays — the hour of noon closed 
the interviews of the m.orning. On other days it 
was the President's custom, at about that hour, to 
order the doors to be thrown open and all who were 
waiting to be admitted. The crowd would rush in, 
throng in the narrow room, and one by one would 
make their wants known. Some came merely to 
shake hands, to wish him Godspeed; their errand 



LIFE 33 

was soon done. Others came asking help or 
mercy ; they usually pressed forward, careless in 
their pain as to what ears should overhear their 
prayer. But there were many who lingered in the 
rear and leaned against the wall, hoping each to be 
last, that they might in tete-a-tete unfold their 
schemes for their own advantage or their neighbor's 
hurt. These were often disconcerted by the Presi- 
dent's loud and hearty, 'Well, friend, what can I do 
for you?' which compelled them to speak, or retire 
and wait for a more convenient season. The in- 
ventors were more a source of amusement than of 
annoyance. They were usually men of some orig- 
inahty of character, not infrequently carried to ec- 
centricity. Lincoln had a quick apprehension of 
mechanical principles, and often detected a flaw in 
an invention which the contriver had overlooked. 
He would sometimes go into the waste fields that 
then lay south of the Executive Mansion to test an 
experimental gun or torpedo. He used to quote 
with much merriment the solemn dictum of one 
rural inventor that *a gun ought not to rekyle; if it 
rekyles at all, it ought to rekyle a little forrid.* 

"At luncheon time he had literally to run the 
gauntlet through the corridors between his office 
and the rooms at the west end of the house occupied 
by the family. The afternoon wore away in much 
the same manner as the morning; late in the day 
he usually drove out for an hour's airing; at six 
o'clock he dined. He was one of the most ab- 
stemious of men; the pleasures of the table had few 
attractions for him. His breakfast was an egg and 



34 LINCOLN 

a cup of coflee ; at luncheon he rarely took more 
than a biscuit and a glass of milk, a plate of fruit 
in its season; at dinner he ate sparingly of one or 
two courses. He drank little or no wine; not that 
he remained on principle a total abstainer, as he was 
during a part of his early life in the fervor of the 
'Washingtonian' reform ; but he never cared for 
wine or liquors of any sort and never used tobacco. 
''There was little gayety in the Executive House 
during his time. It was an epoch, if not of gloom, 
at least of a seriousness too intense to leave room 
for much mirth. There were the usual formal en- 
tertainments, the traditional state dinners and recep- 
tions, conducted very much as they have been ever 
since. The great public receptions, with their vast, 
rushing multitudes pouring past him to shake hands, 
he rather enjoyed; they were not a disagreeable 
task to him, and he seemed surprised when people 
commiserated him upon them. He would shake 
hands with thousands of people, seemingly uncon- 
scious of what he was doing, murmuring some 
monotonous salutation as they went by, his eye dim, 
his thoughts far withdrawn ; then suddenly he would 
see some familiar face, — his memory for faces was 
very good, — and his eye would brighten and his 
whole form grow attentive ; he would greet the 
visitor with a hearty grasp and a ringing word and 
dismiss him with a cheery laugh that filled the Blue 
Room with infectious good nature. Many people 
armed themselves with an appropriate speech to be 
delivered on these occasions, but unless it was com- 
pressed into the smallest possible space, it never was 



LIFE S5 

uttered; the crowd would jostle the peroration out 
of shape. If it were brief enough, and hit the Presi- 
dent's fancy, it generally received a swift answer. 
One night an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, 
'Up our way we believe in God and Abraham Lin- 
coln,' to which the President replied, shoving him 
along the line, 'My friend, you are more than half 
right.* 

"During the first years of the administration the 
house was made lively by the games and pranks of 
Mr. Lincoln's two youngest children, William and 
Thomas ; Robert, the eldest, was away at Harvard, 
only coming home for short vacations. The two 
little boys, aged eight and ten, with their Western 
independence and enterprise, kept the house in an 
uproar. They drove their tutor wild with their good- 
natured disobedience ; they organized a minstrel 
show in the attic ; they made acquaintance with the 
office-seekers and became the hot champions of the 
distressed. WilHam was, with all his boyish frolic, 
a child of great promise, capable of close applica- 
tion and study. He had a fancy for drawing up 
railway time-tables, and would conduct an imaginary 
train from Chicago to New York with perfect pre- 
cision. He wrote childish verses, which sometimes 
attained the unmerited honors of print. But this 
bright, gentle, and studious child sickened and died 
in February, 1862. His father was profoundly moved 
by his death, though he gave no outward sign of his 
trouble, but kept about his work the same as ever. 
His bereaved heart seemed afterwards to pour out 
its fullness on his youngest child. Tad' was a 



36 LINCOLN 

merry, warm-hearted, kindly little boy, perfectly law- 
less, and full of odd fancies and inventions, the 
'chartered libertine' of the Executive Mansion. He 
ran continually in and out of his father's cabinet, 
interrupting his gravest labors and conversations 
with his bright, rapid and very imperfect speech, — 
for he had an impedient which made his articulation 
almost unintelligible until he was nearly grown. He 
would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes 
even on his shoulder, while the most weighty con- 
ferences were going on. Sometimes, escaping from 
the domestic authorities, he would take refuge in that 
sanctuary for the whole evening, dropping to sleep 
at last on the floor, when the President would pick 
him up and carry him tenderly to bed. 

"Mr. Lincoln spent most of his evenings in his 
office, though occasionally he remained in the draw- 
ing-room after dinner, conversing with visitors or 
listening to music, for which he had an especial 
liking, though he was not versed in the science, and 
preferred simple ballads to more elaborate composi- 
tions. In his office he was not often suffered to be 
alone ; he frequently passed the evening there with 
a few friends in frank and free conversation. If 
the company was all of one sort he was at his best ; 
his wit and rich humor had full play ; he was once j 
more the Lincoln of the Eighth Circuit, the cheeriest 
of talkers, the riskiest of story-tellers ; but if a 
stranger came in he put on in an instant his whole 
armor of dignity and reserve. He had a singular 
discernment of men ; he would talk of the most im- 
portant political and military concerns with a free 



LIFE 37 

dom which often amazed his intimates, but we do 
not recall an instance in which his confidence was 
misplaced. 

"Where only one or two were present, he was 
fond of reading aloud. He passed many of the 
summer evenings in this way when occupying his 
cottage at the Soldiers' Home. 

"He read Shakspeare more than all other writers 
together. He made no attempt to keep pace with 
the ordinary literature of the day. Sometimes he 
read a scientific work with keen appreciation, but he 
pursued no systematic course. He owed less to 
reading than most men. He delighted in Burns; of 
Thomas Hood he was also excessively fond. He 
often read aloud 'The Haunted House.' He would 
go to bed with a volume of Hood in his hands, and 
would sometimes rise at midnight and, traversing 
the long halls of the Executive Mansion in his night- 
clothes, would come to his secretary's room and 
read aloud something that especially pleased him. 
He wanted to share his enjoyment of the writer; it 
was dull pleasure for him to laugh alone. He read 
Bryant and Whittier with appreciation ; there were 
many poems of Holmes that he read with intense 
relish. The Last Leaf was one of his favorites ; 
he knew it by heart, and used often to repeat it 
with deep feeling." 

Lincoln's Domestic Life. 

Lincoln's relations with his wife were peculiar. He 
had first of all been deeply in love with Anne Rut- 
ledge, and her death had cast a gloom over his whole 



38 LINCOLN 

life. After that he paid his addresses to various 
young ladies, for his tender heart seemed to yearn 
for domestic life. Each in turn refused him, how- 
ever. At last he met in Springfield the sister of the 
wife of a political comrade, Ninian W. Edwards. 
Mary Todd came of a more or less aristocratic 
Southern family, was well educated, and refined in 
manners and habits. Lincoln was not ; but she was 
ambitious, and she believed he had a political future. 
Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's superior in refinement 
and education, attempted to supplant Lincoln, but 
soon dropped out of the race. 

Lincoln was never sure he was really in love with 
Miss Todd. In some of his gloomy moments he 
made up his mind that he would break off their 
engagement, and wrote her a letter telling her he 
did not think he loved her. He showed it to a 
friend, who threw it in the fire and told Lincoln to 
go and tell her face to face. So the young man set 
off; but he did not return for some hours. 

"Well, old fellow, did you do as I told you and 
you promised?" Speed asked when his friend re- 
turned. 

"Yes, I did," responded Lincoln, "and when I told 
Mary I did not love her, she burst into tears, and 
almost springing from the chair and wringing her 
hands as if in an agony, said something about the 
deceiver being himself deceived." Then he stopped. 

"And what else did you say?" inquired Speed. 

"To tell you the truth, Speed, it was too much for 
me. I found the tears trickling down my own cheeks. 
I caught her in my arms and kissed her." 



LIFE 39 

So the engagement was renewed and January 1, 
1841, set for the marriage. All Miss Todd's friends 
assembled, the house was decked with flowers, and 
the bride in her wedding veil and silks waited for 
the bridegroom. But he did not appear. Messengers 
were sent for him and he could not be found. So 
the guests went sadly home and the lights were put 
out. Miss Todd's mortification may easily be imag- 
ined. 

As for Lincoln, he was found by his friends toward 
daybreak alone in the woods. Restless, miserable, 
gloomy, desperate, he was truly an object of pity. 
His friends feared insanity, and kept from him 
"knives and razors, and every instrument that could 
be used for self-destruction.' Moreover, they 
watched with him night and day. He was a member 
of the legislature, which was then in session ; but 
he was unable to attend it until near its close. After 
the adjournment he went to Kentucky, where he 
spent some time at the home of his friend Speed, 
and finally recovered his mental health and spirits. 

Speed was married not long after this, and was 
so happy that Lincoln was encouraged to make the 
trial himself. A diplomatic lady friend brought 
Miss Todd and Lincoln together again, their friend- 
ship was renewed, and at last, on November 4, 1842, 
they were married. 

One of Lincoln's friends thinks he married his 
wife to save his honor, and that thereby he sacri- 
ficed his domestic peace. Lincoln lived with his 
wife in much the way that other married couples 
live, and had several children, of whom the best 



40 LINCOLN 

known is Robert T. Lincoln. To the outer world 
there never appeared to be any serious friction be- 
tween the couple, but it would appear that they 
were not altogether happy together. 

Lincoln's manners were certainly annoying. One 
evening while lying on the floor in his shirtsleeves 
reading, a knock was heard at the door ; and though 
Mrs. lincoln had often protested against his answer- 
ing the door he insisted on doing it. This time he 
found two ladies come to make a social call. He 
invited them into the parlor, and informed them that 
he would "trot the women folks out." It is not 
strange that such things irritated Mrs, Lincoln not a 
little. 

Besides, she was strongly pro-slavery, being a 
Kentucky woman. "If ever my husband dies," she 
once remarked, "his spirit will never find me living 
outside the limits of a slave state." 

He humored her, however, though he often 
avoided his home, staying in his office without food 
all day and all night, or when ho was "on circuit" 
spending his Sundays at the poor little tavern where 
he had been lodging while his brother lav*^yers 
hastened to their happy homes. Once, it is said, a 
man called on Mrs. Lincoln to find out why his niece 
had been unceremoniously discharged as her servant. 
It seems the good lady used her tongue upon him 
rather roughly. He at once went to find Lincoln 
and require proper satisfaction for this disagreeable 
treatment. Lincoln listened for a moment to his 
story. "My friend," he interrupted, "I regret to 
hear this, but let me ask you in all candor, can't you 



LIFE 41 

endure for a few moments what I have had as my 
daily portion for the last fifteen years?" Mr. Hern- 
don, who tells the story, says these words were 
spoken so mournfully and with such a look of dis- 
tress that the man was completely disarmed, and 
went away, merely pressing Lincoln's hand and ex- 
pressing his sympathy. 

Lincoln had four children, one of whom died in 
infancy, one (Willie) died in the White House, 
Thomas or 'Tad,' who died in Chicago, and Robert 
Todd Lincoln, who became ambassador to the Court 
of St. James (London) and is still living (1907). 

At the request of a friend, Mr. Lincoln wrote out 
the following account of himself : 

An Autobiographic Letter. 

*T was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, 
of undistinguished families — second families, perhaps 
I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth 
year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of 
whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon 
county, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham 
Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Vir- 
ginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a 
year or later he was killed by the Indians, not in 
battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open 
a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were 
Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks county, Penn- 
sylvania. An effort to identify them with the 
New England family of the same name ended in 
nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian 



42 LINCOLN 

names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Morde- 
cai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. 

"My father, at the death of his father, was but six 
years of age, and he grew up literally without educa- 
tion. He removed from Kentucky to what is now 
Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We 
reached our new home about the time the State 
came into the Union. It was a wild region, with 
many bears and other wild animals still in the 
woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, 
so called, but no qualification was ever required of a 
teacher beyond "readin', writin,' and cipherin' " to the 
rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand 
Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he 
was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely 
nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, 
when I came of age I did not know much. Still, 
somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the 
rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to 
school since. The little advance I now have upon 
this store of education I have picked up from time to 
time under the pressure of necessity. 

'T was raised to farm work, which I continued till 
I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, 
Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that 
time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I 
remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then 
came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a 
captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more 
pleasure than any I have had since. I went the 
campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature the 
same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I 



LIFE 43 

ever have been beaten by the people. The next 
three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to 
the legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. 
During this legislative period I had studied law 
and removed to Springfield to practise it. In 1846 
I was once elected to the lower house of congress. 
Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 
1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously 
than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and 
generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making 
active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics 
when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused 
me again. What I have done since then is pretty 
well known. 

"If any personal description of me is thought desir- 
able, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four 
inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average 
one hundred and eighty pounds ; dark complexion, 
with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other 
marks or brands recollected." 

Lincoln's Personal Appearance, 

Horace White, who reported Lincoln's joint de- 
bates with Douglas for the Chicago Tribune, has 
this vivid description of his personal appearance. 
Says he, "I have before me a photograph taken at 
Pittsfield, Illinois, during the campaign of 1858. 
It looks as I have seen him a hundred times, his 
lantern jaws and large mouth and solid nose firmly 
set, his sunken eyes looking at nothing yet not unex- 
pressive, his wrinkled and retreating forehead cut 
off by a mass of tousled hair, with a shade of melan- 



44 LINCOLN 

choly drawn like a veil over his whole face. Noth- 
ing more unlike this can be imagined than the same 
Lincoln when taking part in a conversation, or 
addressing an audience, or telling a story. The 
dull, listless features dropped like a mask. The 
melancholy shadow disappeared in a twinkling. The 
eye began to sparkle, the mouth to smile, the 
whole countenance was wreathed with animation, 
so that a stranger would have said: 'Why, this 
man, so angular and sombre a moment ago, is really 
handsome.' " 

LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS.'' 
In one sense the life of Lincoln as President is 
the history of the Civil War. Now that it is all 
over, we agree that he saved the Union. How did 
he do it? What personal qualities, manners and 
methods resulted in the final victory with which we 
are all familiar. 

The authoritative history of this period is the mon- 
umental work of Nicolay and Hay, the ten-volume 
Life of Lincoln. But here we get only the political 
aspects, documents, and statements of historic facts. 
There is little light on the simple question, "How 
did the rail splitter manage a war that cost a million 
dollars every twenty-four hours, control men who 
were opposing him at every turn, and in the end 
attain success?" 

The question is too difficult to be answered fully 
in the small space here available, but the following 
quotations and anecdotes will suggest the answer. 

*Letters in this section are used by permission of the 
Century Company, owners of the copyright. 



LIFE 45 

The First Inaugural. 

Lincoln's first public appearance in Washington 
was when he delivered his first inaugural address. 
Says Mr. L. E. Chittenden in his "Recollections," 
"Mr. Lincoln's ordinary voice was pitched in a high 
and not unmusical key. Without effort it was heard 
at an unusual distance. Persons at the most distant 
margins of the audience said that every word he 
spoke was distinctly audible to them. The silence 
was unbroken. No speaker ever secured a more 
undivided attention, for almost every person felt a 
personal interest in what he was to say. His friends 
feared, those who were not his friends hoped, that, 
forgetting the dignity of his position, and the occa- 
sion, he would descend to the practices of a story- 
teller, and fail to rise to the level of a statesman. 
For he was popularly known as the 'Rail-spHtter' ; 
was supposed to be uncouth in his manner, and low, 
if not positively vulgar in his moral nature. If not 
restrained by personal fear, it was thought that he 
might attack those who differed with him in opinion 
v/ith threats and denunciations. 

"But the great heart and kindly nature of the man 
were apparent in his opening sentence, in the tone 
of his voice, the expression of his face, in his whole 
manner and bearing. . . . 

"His introduction had not been welcomed by a 
cheer, his opening remarks elicited no response. The 
silence was long-continued, and became positively 
painful. But the power of his earnest words be- 
gan to show itself; the sombre cloud which seemed 



46 LINCOLN 

to hang over the audience began to fade away when 
he said, 'I hold that in the contemplation of uni- 
versal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of 
these states is perpetual!' — with the words *I shall 
take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins upon 
me, that the "Laws of the Union shall be faithfully 
executed in all the states." ' And when, with up- 
lifted eyes and solemn accents, he said, 'The power 
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and 
possess the property and places belonging to the 
government,' a great wave of enthusiasm rolled 
over the audience, as the united voices of the im- 
mense multitude ascended heavenward in a roar of 
assenting applause. 

"From this time to the end of his address, Abra- 
ham Lincoln controlled the audience at his will." 

What Lincoln did in this speech he had to do 
over and over again continually. Within a month 
Wm. H. Seward, his secretary of state sent him 
a remarkable memorandum headed "Some thoughts 
for the President's consideration," which have been 
summarized as follows : "After a month's trial, 
you, Mr. Lincoln, are a failure as President. The 
country is in desperate straits, and must use a des- 
perate remedy. That remedy is to submerge the 
South Carolina insurrection in a continental war. 
Some new man must take the executive helm, and 
wield the undivided presidential authority. I should 
have been nominated at Chicago, and elected in No- 
vember, but am willing to take your place and 
perform your duties." 

Mr. Lincoln quietly pigeonholed this remarkable 



LIFE 47 

document and no one knew of it till twenty-five 
years later. In his reply he wrote with simple dig- 
nity, "If this must be done, I must do it. When 
a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there 
is no danger of its being changed without good rea- 
son; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, 
and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all 
the cabinet." This reply ended the argument. "In 
one mind at least there was no further doubt that 
the cabinet had a master, for only some weeks later 
Mr. Seward is known to have .written : 'There is 
but one vote in the cabinet, and that is cast by the 
President.' " 

Lincoln and his Generals. 

The military situation during the war may be 
briefly summarized as follows : Most of the army 
was gathered about the city of Washington, at first 
under McClellan, and later under Hooker, Halleck, 
and other generals, who were always getting ready 
to fight, but never fighting except when they were 
attacked, until "All quiet on the Pot-o-mac" became 
a byword of ridicule. A lesser army was operating 
in the vicinity of the Mississippi river, and the first 
great victory was the capture of Vicksburg by 
Grant. But at the end of three years Robert E. 
Lee was holding Virginia and no progress had been 
made toward Richmond, indeed the Union army 
had been disgracefully defeated on various occa- 
sions. These were the darkest days for Lincoln; 
but after Grant's successes in the West, he was 
made lieutenant-general and placed in command 



48 . LINCOLN 

of the Army of the Potomac. Sherman made his 
famous march to the sea, and Sheridan cleared the 
Shenandoah valley. After a hard year's fighting 
Lee surrendered at Richmond. 

Nothing is more interesting than the way in 
which Lincoln handled his incompetent generals, 
trying to get what he could out of each, until he 
found further effort useless. 

The following letters to McClellan well illustrate 
the consideration and tact with which he tried to 
crowd him into action, until, giving him up as hope- 
less, he ordered McClellan's removal. 

Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 
1 May, 1863. 

Your call for Parrott guns from Washington 
alarms me, chiefly because it argues indefinite pro- 
crastination. Is anything to be done? 

Letter to General McClellan. Washington, 
9 May, 1862. 

My dear Sir: I have just assisted the Secretary 
of War in framing part of a despatch to you re- 
lating to army corps, which despatch of course will 
have reached you long before this will. 

I wish to say a few words to you privately on 
this subject. I ordered the army corps organiza- 
tion not only on the unannnous opinion of the 
twelve generals whom you had selected and as- 
signed as generals of division, but also on the 
unanimous opinion of every military man I could 
gtet an opinion from (and every modern military 



LIFE 49 

book), yourself only excepted. Of course, I did 
not on my own judgment pretend to understand the 
subject. I now think it indespensable for you 
to know how your struggle against it is received 
in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It 
is looked upon as merely an effort to hamper one 
or two pets and to persecute and degrade their 
supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, 
Heintzelman, or Keyes. The commanders of these 
corps are of course the three highest officers wHh 
you, but I am constantly told that you have no con- 
sultation or communication with them; that you 
consult and communicate with nobody but General 
Fitz-John Porter and perhaps General Franklin. I 
do not say these complaints are true or just, but 
at all events it is proper you should know of their 
existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey 
your orders in anything? 

When you relieved General Hamilton of his com- 
mand the other day, you thereby lost the confidence 
of at least one of your best friends in the Senate. 
And here let me say, not as applicable to you per- 
sonally, that senators and representatives speak of 
me in their places as they please without question, 
and that officers of the army must cease addressing 
insulting letters to them for taking no greater lib- 
erty with them. 

But to return. Are you strong enough — are you 
strong enough, even with my help — to set your foot 
upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes 
all at once? This is a practical and very serious 
question for you. 



50 LINCOLN 

The success of your army and the cause of the 
country are the same, and of course I only desire 
the good of the cause. 

Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 
23 May, 1862. 

I am very glad of General F. J. Porter's victory. 
Still, if it was a total rout of the enemy, I am 
puzzled to know why the Richmond and Fredericks- 
burg Railroad was not seized again, as you say 
you have all the railroads but the Richmond and 
Fredericksburg. I am puzzled to see how, lacking 
that, you can have any, except the scrap from Rich- 
mond to West Point. The scrap of the Virginia 
Central from Richmond to Hanover Junction, with- 
out more, is simply nothing. That the whole of 
the enemy is concentrating on Richmond, I think 
cannot be certainly known to you or me. Saxton, 
at Harper's Ferry, informs us that large forces, 
supposed to be Jackson's and Ewell's, forced his 
advance from Charlestown to-day. General King 
telegraphs us from Fredericksburg that contrabands 
give certain information that 15,000 left Hanover 
Junction Monday morning to reinforce Jackson. I 
am painfully impressed with the importance of the 
struggle before you, and shall aid you all I can 
consistently with my view of due regard to all 
points. 

Letter to General McClellan. Washington, 
1 July, 1862. 

It is impossible to reinforce you for your present 
emergency. If we had a million men we could not 



LIFE 51 

get them to you in time. We have not the men to 
send. If you are not strong enough to face the 
enemy, you must find a place of security, and wait, 
rest, and repair. Maintain your ground if you can, 
but save the army at all events, even if you fall 
back to Fort Monroe. We still have strength 
enough in the country and will bring it out. 

Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 
5 July, 1862. 

A thousand thanks for the relief your two des- 
patches of 12 and 1 p. m. yesterday gave me. Be 
assured the heroism and skill of yourself and offi- 
cers and men is, and forever will be, appreciated. 

If you can hold your present position, we shall 
hive the enemy yet. 

From a Letter to General McClellan. Washing- 
ton, 13 October, 1862. 

My dear Sir: You remember my speaking to you 
of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you 
not over-cautious when you assume that you can- 
not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should 
you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, 
and act upon the claim? As I understand, you 
telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot sub- 
sist your army at Winchester unless the railroad 
from Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working 
order. But the enemy does now subsist his army 
at Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great 
from railroad transportation as you would have to 
do without the railroad last named. He now 



52 LINCOLN 

wagons from Culpeper Court House, which is just 
about twice as far as you would have to do from 
Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half 
as well provided with wagons as you are. I cer- 
tainly should be pleased for you to have the ad- 
vantage of the railroad from Harper's Ferry to 
Winchester, but it wastes all the remainder of au- 
tumn to give it to you, and in fact ignores the ques- 
tion of time, which cannot and must not be ignored. 
Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as you 
know, is to "operate upon the enemy's communica- 
tions as much as possible without exposing your 
own." You seem to act as if this applies against 
you, but cannot apply in your favor. Change po- 
sitions with the enemy, and think you not he would 
break your communication with Richmond within 
the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going 
into Pennsylvania; but if he does so in full force, 
he gives up his communications to you absolutely, 
and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin 
him. If he does so with less than full force, fall 
upon and beat what is left behind all the easier. 
Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer 
Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you 
can and he must take. Why can you not reach there 
before him, unless you admit that he is more than 
your equal on a march? His route is the arc of 
a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are 
as good on yours as on his. You know I desired, 
but did not order, you to cross the Potomac below, 
instead of above, the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. 
My idea was that this would at once menace the 



LIFE 53 

enemy's communications, which I would seize if he 
would permit. 

If he should move northward, I would follow him 
closely, holding his communications. If he should 
prevent our seizing his communications and move 
toward Richmond, I would press closely to him, 
fight him if a favorably opportunity should present, 
and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the 
inside track. 1 say "try" : if we never try, we shall 
never succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, 
moving neither north nor south, I would fight him 
there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when 
he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can 
when we bear the wastage of going to him. This 
proposition is a simple truth, and is too important 
to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to 
us he tenders to us an advantage which we should 
not waive. We should not so operate as to merely 
drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere 
or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to 
us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy 
where he now is, we never can, he again being 
within the intrenchments of Richmond. 
Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 
24 October, 1862. 

I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued 
and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for ask- 
ing what the horses of your army have done since 
the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything? 
Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 
27 October, 1862. 

Your despatch of 3 p. m. today, in regard to fill- 



54 LINCOLN 

ing up old regiments with drafted men, is received, 
and the request therein shall be complied with as 
far as practicable. 

And now I ask a distinct answer to the question, 
Is it your purpose not to go into action again until 
the men now being drafted in the States are incor- 
porated into the old regiments? 

On November 5 McClellan was relieved from 
command. 

When he placed the command of the Army of the 
Potomac in the hands of General Hooker he wrote 
to him the following characteristic letter : 

Letter to General J. Hooker. Washington^ 
26 January, 1863. 

General: I have placed you at the head of the 
Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this 
upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, 
and yet I think it best for you to know that there 
are some things in regard to which I am not quite 
satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and 
skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe 
you do not mix politics with your profession, in 
which you are right. You have confidence in your- 
self, which is a valuable if not an indispensable 
quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable 
bounds, does good rather than harm ; but I think 
that during General Burnside's command of the 
army you have taken counsel of your ambition and 
thwarted him as much as you could, in which you 
did a great wrong to the country and to a most 
meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have 



LIFE 55 

heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your re- 
cently saying that both the army and the government 
needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, 
but in spite of it, that I have given j^ou the command. 
Only those generals who gain successes can set up 
dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, 
and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will 
support you to the utmost of its ability, which is 
neither more nor less than it has done and will do 
for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit 
which you have aided to infuse into the army, of 
criticising their commander and withholding con- 
fidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither 
you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get 
any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails 
in it ; and now beware of rashness. Beware of rash- 
ness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go 
forward and give us victories. 

Meade succeeded Hooker and won the battle of 
Gettysburg, but failed to follow up his success, and 
Lincoln wrote him as follows ; but the letter was 
never signed or sent. Lincoln knew it was useless, 
and he would not inflict unnecessary pain, even on 
an erring general. 

Letter to General Meade After the Battle of 

Gettysburg. Washington, 14 July 1863. 

Never Signed or Sent. 

I have just seen your despatch to General Halleck, 
asking to be relieved of your command because 
of a supposed censure of mine. I am very, very 



56 LINCOLN 

grateful to you for the magnificent success you 
gave the cause of the country at Gettysbwrg; and I 
am sorry now to be the author of the slightest 
pain to you. But I was in such deep distress myself 
that I could not restrain some expression of it. I 
have been oppressed nearly ever since the battle of 
Gettysburg by what appeared to be evidences that 
yourself and General Couch and General Smith 
were not seeking a collision with the enemy, but 
were trying to get him across the river without an- 
other battle. What these evidences were, if you 
please, I hope to tell you at some time when we 
shall both feel better. The case, summarily stated, 
is this : You fought and beat the enemy at Gettys- 
burg, and, of course, to say the least, his loss was 
as great as yours. He retreated, and you did not, 
as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a 
flood in the river detained him till, by slow degrees 
you were again upon him. You had at least twenty 
thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as 
many more raw ones within supporting distance, 
all in addition to those who fought with you at 
Gettysburg, while it was not possible that he had 
received a single recruit, and yet you stood and 
let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the 
enemy move away at his leisure without attacking 
him. And Couch and Smith ! The latter left Car- 
lisle in time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have 
aided you in the last battle of Gettysburg, but he did 
not arrive. At the end of more than ten days, I 
believe, twelve, under constant urging, he reached 
Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch 



LIFE 57 

over fifty-five miles, if so much, and Couch's move- 
ment was very little different. 

Again, my dear general, I do not believe you 
appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved 
in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, 
and to have closed upon him would, in connection 
with our other late successes, have ended the war. 
As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. 
If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, 
how can you possibly do so south of the river, 
when you can take with you very few more than 
two thirds of the force you then had in hand? 
It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not 
expect [that], you can now effect much. Your 
golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed im- 
measureably because of it. 

I beg you will not consider this a prosecution or 
persecution of yourself. As you had learned that 
I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly 
tell you why. 

What Lincoln wanted from his generals was 
results, and if he got them he cared little how they 
were obtained. After the capture of Vicksburg 
Lincoln sent the following letter to General Grant. 
It is dated July 13, the day before the preceding let- 
ter to Meade was written. 

Letter to General Grant After the Surrender of 
Vicksburg. Washington, 13 July 1863. 

My dear General: I do not remember that you 
and I ever met personally. I write this now as 
a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inesti- 



58 LINCOLN 

mable service you have done the country. I wish 
to say a word further. When you first reached 
the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do 
what you finally did — march the troops across the 
neck, run the batteries with the transports, and 
thus go below ; and I never had any faith, except 
a general hope that you knew better than I, that the 
Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. 
When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand 
Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the 
river and join General Banks, and when you turned 
northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was 
a mistake. I now wish to make the personal 
acknowledgment that you were right and I was 
wrong. 

A few months later, April 30, 1864, Lincoln wrote 
as follows to General Grant, who was then in 
command of the army of the Potomac: 

Letter to General Grant. Washington^ 
30 April, 1864. 

Not expecting to see you again before the spring 
campaign opens, I wish to express in this way 
my entire satisfaction with what you have done up 
to this time, so far as I understand it. The par- 
ticulars of your plans I neither know nor seek 
to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, 
pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any con- 
straints or restraints upon you. While I am very 
anxious that any great disaster or capture of our 
men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know 
these points are less likely to escape your attention 
than they would be mine. If there is anything 



LIFE 59 

wanting which is within my power to give, do not 
fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave 
army and a just cause, may God sustain you. 

From General Grant's Memoirs. 

In his Memoirs, General Grant has an interesting 
account of his personal interview with Lincoln : 

"Just after receiving my commission as lieutenant- 
general," he says, "the President called me aside to 
speak to me privately. After a brief reference to 
the military situation, he said he thought he could 
illustrate what he wanted to say by a story, which 
he related as follows : *At one time there was a 
great war among the animals, and one side had 
great difficulty in getting a commander who had 
sufficient confidence in himself. Finally they found 
a monkey by the name of Jocko, who said that he 
thought he could command the army if his tail 
could be made a little longer. So they got more 
tail and spliced it on to his caudal appendage. He 
looked at it admiringly, and then thought he ought 
to have a little more still. This was added, and 
again he called for more. The splicing process 
was repeated many times, until they had coiled 
Jocko's tail around the room, filling all the space. 
Still he called for more tail, and, there being no 
other place to coil it, they began wrapping it around 
his shoulders. He continued to call for more, and 
they kept on winding the additional tail about him 
until its weight broke him down.' I saw the 
point," says Grant, "and rising from my chair re- 
plied, 'Mr. President, I will not call for more as- 



60 LINCOLN 

sistance unless I find it impossible to do with 
what I already have.' " 

It is said that about the time Grant was winning 
some of his victories in the West, a temperance or- 
ganization petitioned the President to remove him 
because he drank too much whiskey, and the Presi- 
dent repHed, "If I could find out what kind of 
whiskey Grant drinks, I would send a barrelful to 
every other general in the field." A friend asked 
him later whether this story was true or not, and 
Lincoln replied that the story originated in King 
George's time. When General Wolfe was accused 
of being mad, the King replied, "I wish he would 
bite some of my other generals." 

General Grant sums up his relations with the 
President by saying, "With all his disappointments 
from failures on the part of those to whom he had 
intrusted commands, and treachery on the part of 
those who had gained his confidence but to betray 
it, I never heard him utter a complaint, nor cast 
a censure, for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his 
nature to find excuses for his adversaries. In his 
death the nation lost its greatest hero ; in his death 
the South lost its most just friend." 

The Dark Hours. 

"The darkest hour of the Civil War came in the 
first week of May, 1863, after the bloody battle of 
Chancellorsville," says W. O. Stoddard, who was at 
that time an inmate of the White House. "The 
country was weary of the long war, with its drain- 
ing taxes of gold and blood. Discontent prevailed 



LIFE 61 

everywhere, and the opponents of the Lincoln ad- 
ministration were savage in their denunciation. More 
than a third of each day's mail already consisted of 
measureless denunciation ; another large part was 
made up of piteous appeals for peace. 

"There were callers at the White House. Mem- 
bers of the Senate and House came with gloomy 
faces ; the members of the Cabinet came to con- 
sult or condole. The house was like a funeral, 
and those who entered or left it trod softly for 
fear they might wake the dead. 

"That night the last visitors in Lincoln's room 
were Stanton and Halleck, and the President was 
left alone. Not another soul except the one secre- 
tary busy with the mail in his room across the hall ! 
The ticking of a clock would have been noticeable ; 
but another sound came that was almost as regular 
and as ceaseless. It was the tread of the President's 
feet as he strode slcwly back and forth across his 
chamber. That ceaseless march so accustomed the 
ear to it that when, a little after twelve, there was 
a break of several minutes, the sudden silence made 
one put down his letters and listen. 

"The President may have been at his writing 
table, or he may — no man knows or can guess ; but 
at the end of the minutes, long or short, the tramp 
began again. Two o'clock and he was walking yet, 
and when, a little after three, the secretary's task 
was done and he slipped noiselessly out, he turned 
at the head of the stairs for a moment. It was 
so — the last sound he heard as he went down was 
the footfall in Lincoln's room. 



62 LINCOLN 

"The young man was there again before eight 
o'clock. The President's room was open. There sat 
Lincoln eating his breakfast alone. He had not been 
out of his room; but there was a kind of cheery, 
hopeful morning light on his face. He had watched 
all night, but besides his cup of coffee lay his in- 
structions to General Hooker to push forward. 
There was a decisive battle won that night in that 
long vigil with disaster and despair. Only a few 
weeks later the Army of the Potomac fought it all 
over again as desperately — and they won it — at 
Gettysburg." 

Letter to John D. Johnston, 2 January, 1851, 
Refusing Request for Loan, 

The following letter to J. D. Johnston, who was 
a son by a former marriage of Lincohi's stepmother, 
is both characteristic and amusing. 

Dear Johnston: Your request for eighty dollars 
I do not think it best to comply with now. At the 
various times when I have helped you a little you 
have said to me, "We can get along very well now" ; 
but in a very short time I find you in the same 
difficulty again. Now, this can only happen by some 
defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think 
I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an 
idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have 
done a good whole day's work in any one day. You 
do not very much dislike to work, and still you do 
not work much, merely because it does not seem 



LIFE 63 

to you that you could get much for it. This habit 
of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it 
is vastly important to you, and still more so to your 
children, that you should break the habit. It is 
more important to them, because they have longer 
to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they 
are in it, easier than they can get out after they 
are in. 

You are now in need of some money; and what I 
propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and 
nail,' for somebody who will give you money for it. 
Let father and your boys take charge of your things 
at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, 
and you go to work for the best money wages, or in 
discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; 
and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I 
now promise you, that for every dollar you will, 
between this and the first of May, get for your own 
labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, 
I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if 
you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me 
you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a 
month for your work. In this I do not mean you 
shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the 
gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go 
at it for the best wages you can get close to home 
in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you 
will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you 
will have a habit that will keep you from getting 
in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out 
of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as 



64 LINCOLN 

ever. You say you would almost give your place 
in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you 
value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am 
sure you can, with the offer I make, get the sev- 
enty or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. 
You say if I will furnish you the money you will 
deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money 
back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense ! If 
you can't now live with the land, how will you then 
live without it? You have always been kind to me, 
and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the 
contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will 
find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars 
to you. 

Letter to Horace Greeley. Washington, 
22 August, 1862. 
In Answer to an Open Letter in the Tribune 
Headed "^The Prayer of Twenty Millions/' 
Accusing Lincoln of Being Too Friendly To- 
ward THE Pro-Slavery Advocates. 

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, ad- 
dressed to myself through the New York "Tribune." 
If there be in it any statements or assumptions of 
fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do 
not, now and here, controvert them. If there 
be in it any inferences which I may believe to be 
falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against 
them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient 
and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an 
old friend whose heart I have always supposed to 
be right. 



LIFE 65 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you 
say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union, I would save it the 
shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner 
the national authority can be restored, the nearer 
the Union will be *'the Union as it was." If there 
be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree 
with them. If there be those who would not save 
the Union unless they could at the same time 
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My 
paramount object in this struggle is to save the 
Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave 
I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save it by free- 
ing some and leaving others alone, I would also do 
that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I 
do because I believe it helps to save the Union ; 
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not 
believe it would help to save the Union, I shall do 
less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts 
the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall 
believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try 
to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I 
shall adopt new views "so fast as they shall appear 
to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my 
view of official duty; and I intend no modification 
of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men 
everywhere could be free. 



66 LINCOLN 



SPEECHES 

NOTE FOR LAW LECTURE 

Written About 1 July, 1850. 

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite 
as much material for a lecture in those points 
wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have 
been moderately successful. The leading rule for 
the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, 
is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which 
can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence 
fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have 
in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertain- 
ing to it which can then be done. When you bring 
a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing 
so, write the declaration at once. If a law point be 
involved, examine the books, and note the authority 
you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you 
are sure to find it when wanted. The same of de- 
fenses and pleas. In business not likely to be liti- 
gated, — ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, par- 
titions, and the like, — make all examinations of titles, 
and note them, and even draft orders and de- 
crees in advance. This course has a triple advantage ; 
it avoids omissions and neglect, saves you labor 
when once done, performs the labor out of court 
when you have leisure, rather than in court when 
you have not. Extemporaneous speaking should be 
practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue 



SPEECHES 67 

to the public. However able and faithful he may be 
in other respects, people are slow to bring him busi- 
ness if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is 
not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying 
too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his 
rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption 
from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure 
in advance. 

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to 
compromise whenever you can. Point out to them 
how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in 
fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker 
the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a 
good man. There will still be business enough. 

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarce- 
ly be found than one who does this. Who can be more 
nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the 
register of deeds in search of defects in titles, 
whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his 
pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the 
profession which should drive such men out of it. 

The matter of fees is important, far beyond the 
mere question of bread and butter involved. Prop- 
erly attended to, fuller justice is done to both law- 
yer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be 
claimed. As a general rule never take your whole 
fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. 
When fully paid beforehand, you are more than 
a common mortal if you can feel the same interest 
in the case, as if something was still in prospect 
for you, as well as for your client. And when you 
lack interest in the case the job will very likely 



68 LINCOLN 

lack skill and diligence in the performance. Settle 
the amount of fee and take a note in advance. Then 
you will feel that you are working for something, 
and you are sure to do your work faithfully and 
well. Never sell a fee note — at least not before the 
consideration service is performed. It leads to 
negligence and dishonest}^ — negligence by losing in- 
terest in the case, and dishonesty in refusing to re- 
fund when you have allowed the consideration to 
fail. 

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are 
necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when 
we consider to what extent confidence and honors 
are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the 
people, it appears improbable that their impression 
of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the 
impression is common, almost universal. Let no 
young man choosing the law for a calling for a 
moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be 
honest at all events; and if in your own judgment 
you cannot be an honest lawyer resolve to be hon- 
est without being a lawyer. Choose some other oc- 
cupation, rather than one in the choosing of which 
you do, in advance, consent to be a knave. 

REPLY TO SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUG- 
LAS AT PEORIA, 

Illinois, 16 October, 1854, the Greatest Speech 
OF THE Douglas Debate. 

About a month after the introduction of the bill 
[to give Nebraska and Kansas territorial govern- 



SPEECHES 69 

ments] on the judge's own motion it is so amended 
as to declare the Missouri Compromise inoperative 
and void; and, substantially, that the people who 
go and settle there may establish slavery, or ex- 
clude it, as they may see fit. In this shape the bill 
passed both branches of Congress and became a 
law. 

This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
The foregoing history may not be precisely accu- 
rate in every particular, but I am sure it is suffi- 
ciently so for all the use I shall attempt to make 
of it, and in it we have before us the chief material 
enabHng us to judge correctly whether the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong. I 
think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong — wrong 
in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and 
Nebraska, and wrong in its prospective principle, 
allowing it to spread to every other part of the 
wide world where men can be found inclined to 
take it. 

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, 
covert real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I can- 
not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous 
injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it de- 
prives our republican example of its just influence 
in the world; enables the enemies of free institu- 
tions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites ; 
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our 
sincerity; and especially because it forces so many 
good men among ourselves into an open war with 
the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criti- 
cizing the Declaration of Independence, and insist- 



70 LINCOLN 

ing that there is no right principle of action but 
self-interest. 

Before proceeding let me say that I think I have 
no prejudice against the Southern people. They 
are just what we would be in their situation. If 
slavery did not now exist among them, they would 
not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we 
should not instantly give it up. ' This I believe of the 
masses North and South. Doubtless there are indi- 
viduals on both sides who would not hold slaves 
under any circumstances, and others who would 
gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of 
existence. We know that some Southern men do 
free their slaves, go North and become tip-top 
Abolitionists, while some Northern ones go South 
and become most cruel slave-masters. 

When Southern people tell us they are no more 
responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, 
I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the 
institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get 
rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand 
and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame 
them for not doing what I should not know how 
to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, 
I should not know what to do as to the existing 
institution. My first impulse would be to free all 
the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own 
native land. But a moment's reflection would con- 
vince me that whatever of high hope (as I think 
there is) there may be in this in the long run, its 
sudden execution is impossible. If they were all 
landed there in a day, they would all perish in the 



SPEECHES 71 

next ten days ; and there are not surplus shipping 
and surplus money enough to carry them there in 
many times ten days. What then? Free them all, 
and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite 
certain that this betters their condition? I think I 
would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the 
point is not clear enough for me to denounce people 
upon. What next? Free them, and make them 
politically and socially our equals ? My own feel- 
ings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we 
well know that those of the great mass of whites 
will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice 
and sound judgment is not the sole question, if 
indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, 
whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely dis- 
regarded. We cannot then make them equals. It 
does seem to me that systems of gradual emanci- 
pation might be adopted, but for their tardiness in 
this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of 
the South. 

When they remind us of their constitutional 
rights, I acknowledge them — not grudgingly, but 
fully and fairly; and I would give them any legisla- 
tion for the reclairning of their fugitives which 
should not in its stringency be more likely to carry 
a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal 
laws are to hang an innocent one. 

But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more 
excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own 
free territory than it would for reviving the 
African slave-trade by law. The law which for- 
bids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that 



72 LINCOLN 

which has so long forbidden the taking of them 
into Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any 
moral principle, and the repeal of the former could 
find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter. 
Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us 
to consent to the extension of slavery to new coun- 
tries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do not object 
to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must 
not object to your taking your slave. Now, I ad- 
mit that this is perfectly logical, if there is no dif- 
ference between hogs and negroes. But while you 
thus require me to deny the humanity of the ne- 
gro, I wish to ask whether you of the South, your- 
selves, have ever been willing to do as much ? It 
is kindly provided that of all those who come into 
the world only a small percentage are natural 
tyrants. That percentage is no larger in the slave 
States than in the free. The great majority South, 
as well as North, have human sympathies, of which 
they can no more divest themselves than they can 
of their sensibility to physical pain. These sympa- 
thies in the bosoms of the Southern people mani- 
fest, in many ways, their sense of the wrong of 
slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, there 
is humanity in the negro. If they deny this, let me 
address them a few plain questions. In 1820 you 
joined the North, almost unanimousl)'', in declaring 
the African slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to 
it the punishment of death. Why did you do this? 
If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did you 
join in providing that men should be hung for it? 
The practice was no more than bringing wild ne- 



SPEECHES 73 

groes from Africa to such as would buy them. But 
you never thought of hanging men for catching 
and selHng wild horses, wild buffaloes, or wild bears. 

Again, you have among you a sneaking individual 
of the class of native tyrants known as the "Slave- 
Dealer." He watches your necessities, and crawls 
up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If .you 
cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help 
it, you drive him from your door. You despise him 
utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or 
even as an honest man. Your children must not 
play with his ; they may rollick freely with the little 
negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children. 
If you are obliged to deal with him, you try to get 
through the job without so much as touching him. 
It is common with you to join hands with the men 
you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the 
ceremony — instinctively shrinking from the snaky 
contact. If he grows rich and retires from busi- 
ness, you still remember him, and still keep up 
the ban of non-intercourse upon him and his fam- 
ily. Now why is this? You do not so treat the 
man who deals in corn, cotton, or tobacco. 

And yet again. There are in the United States 
and Territories, including the district of Columbia, 
433,643 free blacks. At five hundred dollars per 
head they are worth over two hundred millions of 
dollars. How comes this vast amount of property 
to be running about without owners? We do not 
see free horses or free cattle running at large. How 
is this? All these free blacks are the descendants 
of slaves, or have been slaves themselves ; and they 



74 LINCOLN 

would be slaves now but for something which has 
operated on their white owners, inducing them at 
vast pecuniary sacrifice to liberate them. What is 
that something? Is there any mistaking it? In 
all these cases it is your sense of justice and hu- 
man sympathy continually teUing you that the poor 
negro has some natural right to himself — that those 
who deny it and make mere merchandise of him 
deserve kickings, contempt, and death. 

And now why will you ask us to deny the hu- 
manity of the slave, and estimate him as only the 
equal of the hog? Why ask us to do what you will 
not do yourselves? Why ask us to do for nothing 
what two hundred millions of dollars could not 
induce you to do? 

ADDRESS OF FAREWELL. 

Springfield, Illinois^ 11 February^ 1861. 

My Friends: No one, not in my situation, can 
appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To 
this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe 
everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a cen- 
tury, and have passed from a young to an old man. 
Here my children have been born, and one is buried. 
I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I 
may return, with a task before me greater than 
that which rested upon Washington. Without the 
assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended 
him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I 
cannot fail. Trusting in him who can go with me, 
and remain with you, and be everywhere for good. 



SPEECHES 75 

let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To 
his care commending you, as I hope in your prayers 
you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate 
farewell. 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
Washington, 4 March, 1861. 

Fellow-citizens of the United States: In compli- 
ance with a custom as old as the government itself, 
I appear before you to address you briefly, and to 
take in your presence the oath prescribed by the 
Constitution of the United States to be taken by 
the President "before he enters on the execution of 
his office." 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me 
to discuss those matters of administration about 
which there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of 
the Southern States that by the accession of a Re- 
publican administration their property and their 
peace and personal security are to be endangered. 
There has never been any reasonable cause for such 
apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to 
the contrary has all the while existed and been 
open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all 
the published speeches of him who now addresses 
you. I do but quote from one of those speeches 
when I declare that 'T have no purpose, directly or 
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no 
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to 



76 LINCOLN 

do so." Those who nominated and elected me did 
so will full knowledge that I had made this and 
many similar declarations, and had never recanted 
them. And, more than this, they placed in the 
platform for my acceptance, and as a law to them- 
selves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution 
which I now read: 

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the 
rights of the States, and especially the right of each 
State to order and control its own domestic insti- 
tutions according to its own judgment exclusively, 
is essential to that balance of power on which the 
perfection and endurance of our political fabric de- 
pend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, 
no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest 
of crimes. 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing 
so, I only press upon the public attention the most 
conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, 
that the property, peace, and security of no section 
are to be in any wise endangered by the now incom- 
ing administration. I add, too, that all the pro- 
tection which, consistently with the Constitution 
and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given 
to all the state when lawfully demanded, for what- 
ever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to an- 
other. 

There is much controversy about the delivering 
up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause 
I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution 
as any other of its provisions: 



SPEECHES 77 

No person held to service or labor in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein be 
discharged from such service or labor, but shall 
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due. 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was 
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming 
of what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention 
of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Con- 
gress swear their support to the whole Constitution 
— to this provision as much as any other. To the 
proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come 
within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered 
up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would 
make the effort in good temper, could they not with 
nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by 
means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State 
authority; but surely that dift'erence is not a very 
material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it 
can be but of little consequence to him or to others 
by which authority it is done. And should any one 
in any case be content that his oath shall be unkept 
on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how 
it shall be kept? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not 
all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and 
humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a 
free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? 
And might it not be well at the same time to pro- 



78 LINCOLN 

vide by law for the enforcement of that clause in 
the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen 
of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the Several states" ? 

I take the official oath today with no mental reser- 
vations, and with no purpose to construe the Con- 
stitution or laws, by any hypocritical rules. And 
while I do not choose now to specify particular acts 
of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest 
that it will be much safer for all, both in official and 
private stations, to conform to and abide by all those 
acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of 
them, trusting to find impunity in having them held 
to be unconstitutional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration 
of a President under our National Constitution. 
During that period fifteen different and greatly dis- 
tinguished citizens have, in succession, administered 
the executive branch of the government. They 
have conducted it through many perils, and gen- 
erally with great success. Yet, with all this scope 
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for 
the brief constitutional term of four years under 
great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the 
Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now 
formidably attempted, 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is 
perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, 
in the fundamental law of all national governments. 
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever 
had a provision in its organic law for its own ter- 



SPEECHES 79 

mination. Continue to execute all the express pro- 
visions of our National Constitution, and the Union 
will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy 
it except by some action not provided for in the 
instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it? 
One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so 
to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully re- 
scind it? 

Descending from these general principles, we find 
the proposition that in legal contemplation the 
Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the 
Union itself. The Union is much older than the 
Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles 
of Association in 1774. It was matured and con- 
tinued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 
It was further matured, and the faith of all the 
then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged 
that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Con- 
federation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the 
declared objects for ordaining and establishing the 
Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union." 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or 
by a part only of the states be lawfully possible, the 
Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, 
having lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon 
its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the 
Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect 



80 LINCOLN 

are legally void; and that acts of violence, within 
any State or States, against the authority of the 
United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, 
according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Con- 
stitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and 
to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the 
Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that 
the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all 
the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple 
duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as 
practicable, unless by rightful masters, the American 
people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in 
some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I 
trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only 
as the declared purpose of the Union that it will 
constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or 
violence ; and there shall be none, unless it be 
forced upon the national authority. The power con- 
fided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess 
the property and places belonging to the govern- 
ment, and to collect the duties and imposts ; but 
beyond what may be necessary for these objects, 
there will be no invasion, no using of force against 
or among the people anywhere. Where hostility 
to the United States, in any interior locality, shall 
be so great and universal as to prevent competent 
resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, 
there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers 
among the people for that object. While the strict 
legal right may exist in the government to enforce 



SPEECHES 81 

the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so 
would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable 
withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time 
the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be 
furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as pos- 
sible, the people everywhere shall have that sense 
of perfect security which is most favorable to calm 
thought and reflection. The course here indicated 
will be followed unless current events and expe- 
rience will show a modification or change to be 
proper, and in every case and exigency my best 
discretion will be exercised according to circum- 
stances actually existing, and with a view and a 
hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles 
and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and af- 
fections. 

That there are persons in one section or another 
who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and 
are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm 
nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no 
word to them. To those, however, who really love 
the Union may I not speak? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the 
destruction of our national fabric, with all its bene- 
fits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be 
wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will 
you hazard so desperate a step while there is any 
possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from 
have no real existence. Will you, while the certain 
ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you 



82 LINCOLN 

fly from — will you risk the commission of so fear- 
ful a mistake? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all con- 
stitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, 
then, that any right, plainly written in the constitu- 
tion, has been denied? I think not. Happily the 
human mind is so constituted that no party can 
reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you 
can, of a single instance in which a plainly written 
provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. 
If by the mere force of numbers a majority should 
deprive a minority of any clearly written constitu- 
tional right, it might, in a moral point of view, 
justify revolution — certainly would if such a right 
were a vital one. But such is not our case. All 
the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are 
so plainly assured to them by affirmations and nega- 
tions, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitu- 
tion, that controversies never arise concerning them. 
But no organic law can ever be framed with a pro- 
vision specifically applicable to every question which 
may occur in practical administration. No fore- 
sight can anticipate, nor any document of reason- 
able length contain, express provisions for all pos- 
sible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be sur- 
rendered by national or by State authority? The 
Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress 
prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitu- 
tion does not expressly say. Must Congress protect 
slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does 
not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our con- 



SPEECHES 83 

stitutional controversies, and we divide upon them 
into majorities and minorities. If the minority will 
not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government 
must cease. There is no other alternative; for con- 
tinuing the government is acquiescence on one side 
or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than 
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will 
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own 
will secede from them whenever a majority refuses 
to be controlled by such minority. For instance, 
why may not any portion of a new confederacy a 
year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely 
as portions of the present union now claim to secede 
from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are 
now being educated to the exact temper of doing 
this. 

Is there such perfect identity of interests among 
the States to compose a new Union, as to produce 
harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence 
of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by con- 
stitutional checks and limitations, and always chang- 
ing easily with deliberate changes of popular opin- 
ions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of 
a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of neces- 
sity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is 
impossible ; the rule of a minority, as a permanent 
arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, re- 
jecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism 
in some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, 



84 • LINCOLN 

that constitutional questions are to be decided by 
the Supreme Court ; nor do I deny that such decis- 
ions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties 
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they 
are also entitled to very high respect and considera- 
tion in all parallel cases by all other departments 
of the government. And while it is obviously pos- 
sible that such decision may be erroneous in any 
given case, still the evil effect following it, being 
limited to that particular case, with the chance that 
it may be overruled and never become a precedent 
for other cases, can better be borne than could the 
evils of a different practice. At the same time, the 
candid citizen must confess that if the poHcy of the 
government, upon vital questions affecting the whole 
l|; people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the 

Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordi- 
nary litigation between parties in personal actions, 
the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, 
having to that extent practically resigned their gov- 
ernment into the hands of that eminent tribunal. 
Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court 
or the judges. It is a duty from which they may 
not shrink to decide cases properly brought before 
them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to 
turn their decisions to political purposes. 

One section of our country beheves slavery is 
right, and ought to be extended, while the other 
believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. 
This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive- 
slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the 
suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as 



SPEECHES 85 

well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in 
a community where the moral sense of the people 
imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body 
of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in 
both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I 
think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be 
worse in both cases after the separations of the 
sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now 
imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, 
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive 
slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be 
surrendered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- 
not remove our respective sections from each other, 
nor build an impassable wall between them. A hus- 
band and wife may be divorced, and go out of the 
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but 
the different parts of our country cannot do this. 
They cannot but remain face to face, and inter- 
course, either amicable or hostile, must continue 
between them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory 
after separation than before? Can ahens make 
treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can 
treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to 
war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much 
loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease 
fighting, the identical old question as to terms of 
intercourse are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 



86 LINCOLN 

weary of the existing government, they can exer- 
cise their constitutional right of amending it, or 
their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow 
it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many 
worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having 
the National Constitution amended. While I make 
no recommendation of amendments, I fully recog- 
nize the rightful authority of the people over the 
whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes 
prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, 
under existing circumstances, favor rather than 
Oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people 
to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me 
the convention rnode seems preferable, in that it 
allows amendments to originate v;ith the people 
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take 
or reject propositions originated by others not es- 
pecially chosen for the purpose, and which might 
not be precisely such as they would wish to either 
accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amend- 
ment to the Constitution — which amendment, how- 
ever, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the 
effect that the Federal Government shall never in- 
terfere with the domestic institutions of the States, 
including that of persons held to service. To avoid 
misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from 
my purpose not to speak of particular amendments 
so far as to say that, holding such a provision to 
now be implied constitutional law, I have no ob- 
jection to its being made express and irrevocable. 
The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him 



SPEECHES 87 

to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 
people themselves can do this also if they choose; 
but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. 
His duty is to administer the present government, 
as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unim- 
paired by him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in 
the ultimate justice of the people Is there any 
better or equal hope in the world? In our present 
differences is either party without faith of being in 
the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with 
his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the 
North, or on yours of the South, that truth and 
that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of 
this great tribunal of the American people. 

By the frame of the government under which we 
live, this same people have wisely given their pub- 
lic servants but little power for mischief; and have, 
with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that 
Httle to their own hands at very short intervals. 
While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, 
no administration, by any extreme of wickedness 
or folly, can very seriously injure the government 
in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be 
lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry 
any of you in hot haste to a step which you would 
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated 
by taking time; but no good object can be frus- 
trated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, 
still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on 



88 LINCOLN 

every sensitive point, the laws of your own framing 
under it; while the new administration will have no 
immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it 
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold 
the right side in the dispute, there still is no single 
good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, 
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him 
who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are 
still competent to adjust in the best way all our 
present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil 
war. The government will not assail you. You 
can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven 
to destroy the government, while I shall have the 
most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and de- 
fend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas- 
sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds 
of afifection. The mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
ing from every battle-field and patriot grave to every 
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature. 



SPEECHES 89 

FINAL EMANCIPA TION P ROC LAM A TION. 
1 January, 1863. 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the 
President of the United States, containing, among 
other things, the following, to wit : 

That on the first day of January, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
three, all persons held as slaves within any State, 
or designated part of a State, the people whereof 
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, 
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free; and 
the Executive Government of the United States, 
including the military and naval authority thereof, 
will recognize and maintain the freedom of such 
persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such 
persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may 
make for their actual freedom. 

That the Executive will, on the first day of Jan- 
uary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States 
and parts of States, if any, in which the people 
thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against 
the United States; and the fact that any State, or 
the people thereof, shall on that day be in good 
faith represented in the Congress of the United 
States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein 
a majority of the qualified voters of such State 
shall have participated, shall in the absence of 
strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive 



90 LINCOLN 

evidence that such State and the people thereof are 
not then in rebellion against the United States. 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, by virtue of the power in me 
vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy 
of the United States, in time of actual armed rebel- 
lion against the authority and government of the 
United States, and as a fit and necessary war meas- 
ure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first 
day of January, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accord- 
ance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed 
for the full period of 100 days from the day first 
above mentioned, order and designate as the States 
and parts of States wherein the people thereof, re- 
spectively, are this day in rebellion against the 
United States, the following, to wit : 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes 
of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, 
St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North 
Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight coun- 
ties designated as West Virginia, and also the coun- 
ties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth 
City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including 
the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which 
excepted parts are for the present left precisely as 
if this proclamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons 



SPEECHES 91 

held as slaves within said designated States and 
parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; 
and that the Executive Government of the United 
States, including the military and naval authorities 
thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of 
said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared 
to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in 
necessary self-defense ; and I recommend to them 
that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully 
for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition will be received into 
the armed service of the United States to garrison 
forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to 
man vessels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an 
act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon 
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judg- 
ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Al- 
mighty God. 

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE 

GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY, 

19 November, 1863. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. • 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, t?sting 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceited and 
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a 



92 LINCOLN 

great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
place for those who here gave their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we 
cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to 
add or detract. The world will httle note nor long 
remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining 'before us — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth. 

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Washington, 4 March, 1865. 

Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the presidential office, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was 
at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, 
of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. 



SPEECHES 93 

Now, at the expiration of four years, during which 
public declarations have been constantly called forth 
on every point and phase of the great contest which 
still absorbs the attention and engrosses the ener- 
gies of the nation, little that is new could be pre- 
sented. The progress of our arms, upon which all 
else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public 
as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory 
and encouraging to all. With high hope for the 
future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- 
pending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to 
avert it. While the inaugural address was being 
delivered from this place, devoted altogether to 
saving the Union without war, insurgent agents 
were in the city seeking to destroy it without war 
• — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, 
by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but 
one of them would make war rather than let the 
nation survive; and the other would accept war 
rather than let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the Southern part of it These slaves 
constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All 
knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of 
the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this 
interest was the object for which the insurgents 
would rend the Union, even by war; while the 
government claimed no right to do more than to 
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 



94 LINCOLN 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
or the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might 
cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should 
cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a 
result less fundamental and astounding. Both read 
the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and 
each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's 
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat 
of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we 
be not judged. The prayers of both could not be 
answered — that of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto 
the world because of offenses ! for it must needs be 
that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom 
the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of those offenses which, in 
the providence of God, must needs come, but which, 
having continued through his appointed time, he 
now wills to remove, and that he gives to both 
North and South this terrible war, as the woe due 
to those by whom the offense came, shall we dis- 
cern therein any departure from those divine at- 
tributes which the believers in a living God always 
ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do 
we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue 
until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hun- 
dred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, 
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as 



SPEECHES 05 

was said three thousand years ago, so still it must 
be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are 
in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, 
and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, 
and with all nations. 



ANECDOTES 

Lincoln's Pardons. 

Such was the serious side of Lincoln's Presi- 
dency; but woven all through it was the relief of 
his humor — his amusing stories — and his humanity — 
which found opportunity for constant exercise in the 
almost daily private tragedies that came under his 
personal notice. 

Many stories are told of how Lincoln pardoned 
deserters and others condemned to death, and many 
of these are pure romance, devoid of the slightest 
truth. In his Reminiscences General Butler tells 
the following anecdote. He said to the President, 
"The bounties which are now being paid to new 
recruits cause very large desertions. Men desert 
and go home, and get the bounties and enlist in other 
regiments.'* 



96 LINCOLN 

" 'That is too true,' he replied, 'but how can we 
prevent it?' 

" 'By vigorously shooting every man who is caught 
as a deserter, until it is found to be a dangerous 
business.' 

"A saddened, weary look came over his face 
which I had never seen before, and he slowly re- 
plied, — 

" 'You may be right — probably you are so ; but, 
God help me ! how can I have a butcher's day 
every Friday in the Army of the Potomac?'" 

Perhaps the best known story of Lincoln's par- 
dons, and the one most truly characteristic of the 
man, is that of Scott, the Vermonter, who slept at 
his post when on sentry duty. He had taken the 
place of a sick comrade one night, and the very next 
night was drafted himself. He said frankly he was 
afraid he couldn't keep awake two nights in suc- 
cession, but if it was his duty he would do his best. 

The hostile armies lay close together, and the 
pickets of the two armies had been almost on 
friendly terms. To correct this demoralization Gen- 
eral Smith had issued a stringent order, and when 
Scott was found fast asleep at his post he was 
singled out as the first victim and was ordered to 
be shot. 

Scott's comrades knew there was no braver man 
in the regiment than this Vermont farmer, and the 
captain of his company with a few others started 
out at once to Washington to see Mr. L. E. Chitten- 
den, who tells the story most authentically in hi3 



ANECDOTES 97 

Remiscences. The boys were taken to the President, 
who opened the conversation by asking, 

"What is this? Another expedition to kidnap 
somebody, or to get another brigadier appointed, 
or for a furlough to go home to vote? I cannot 
do it, gentlemen. Brigadiers are thicker than drum- 
majors, and I couldn't get a furlough for myself 
if I asked it from the War Department." 

When the little captain had stated Scott's case, he 
ended, "He is as brave a boy as there is your army, 
sir. Scott is no coward. Our mountains breed 
no cowards. They are the homes of thirty thousand 
men who voted for Abraham Lincoln. They will 
not be able to see that the best thing to be done 
with William Scott will be to shoot him like a 
traitor and bury him like a dog! Oh, Mr. Lincoln, 
can you?" 

"No, I can't!" exclaimed the President. It was 
one of the moments when his countenance became 
such a remarkable study. It had become very ear- 
nest as the captain rose with his subject; then it 
took on that melancholy expression which, later in 
his life, became so infinitely touching. I thought 
I could detect a mist in the deep cavities of his 
eyes. Then, in a flash, there was a total change. 
He smiled, and finally broke into a hearty laugh as 
he asked me, 

"Do your Green Mountain boys fight as well as 
they talk? If they do, I don't wonder at the 
legends about Ethan Allen." Then his face softened 
as he said, "What do you expect me to do? As you 



98 LINCOLN 

know, I have not much influence with the depart- 
ments." 

A reprieve was suggested to permit an examina- 
tion of the case. 

"No!" exclaimed Lincoln, "I do not think that 
course would be safe. You do not know these 
officers of the regular army. They are a law unto 
themselves. They sincerely think that it is good 
policy occasionally to shoot a soldier. I can see 
it, where a soldier deserts or commits a crime, 
but I cannot in such a case as Scott's. They say 
that I am always interfering with the discipline of the 
army, and being cruel to the soldiers. Well, I can't 
help it, so I shall have to go right on doing wrong. 
I do not think an honest, brave soldier, conscious of 
no crime but sleeping when he was weary, ought 
to be shot or hung. The country has better uses 
for him. 

"Captain," continued the President, "your boy 
shall not be shot — that is, not to-morrow, nor until 
I know more about this case." To me he said, 'T 
will have to attend to this matter myself. I have 
for some time intended to go up to the Chain 
Bridge. I will do so to-day. I shall then know 
that there is no mistake in suspending the execu- 
tion." 

I remarked that he was undertaking a burden 
which we had no right to impose; that it was 
asking too much of the President in behalf of a 
private soldier. 

"Scott's life is as valuable to him as that of any 
person in the land," he said. "You remember the 



ANECDOTES 99 

remark of a Scotchman about the head of a noble- 
man who was decapitated, — ''It was a small matter 
of a head, but it was valuable to him, poor fellow, 
for it was the only one he had." 

During the day Lincoln went out to the camp. 
Scott afterward told a comrade the story of his 
interview with the President. Said he, "The Presi- 
dent was the kindest man I had ever seen. I knew 
him at once by a Lincoln medal I had long worn. 
I was scared at first, for I had never before talked 
with a great man. But Mr, Lincoln was so easy 
with me, so gentle, that I soon forgot my fright. He 
asked me all about my people at home, the neighbors, 
the farm, and where I went to school, and who my 
schoolmates were. Then he asked me about mother, 
and how she looked, and I was glad I could take 
her photograph from my bosom and show it to him. 
He said how thankful I ought to be that mother 
still lived, and how, if he was in my place, he would 
try to make her a proud mother, and never cause 
her a sorrow or a tear. I cannot remember it all, 
but every word was so kind. 

"He had said nothing yet about that dreadful next 
morning. I thought it must be that he was so kind- 
hearted that he didn't like to speak of it. But 
why did he say so much about my mother, and 
not causing her a sorrow or a tear when I knew 
that I must die the next morning? But I supposed 
that was something that would have to go unex- 
plained, and so I determined to brace up, and tell 
him that I did not feel a bit guilty, and ask him 
wouldn't he fix it so that the firing-party would 

tOfC, 



100 LINCOLN 

not be from our regiment ! That was going to be 
the hardest of all — to die by the hands of my 
comrades. 

''Just as I was going to ask him this favor, he 
stood up, and he says to me, 'my boy, stand up here 
and look me in the face.' I did as he bade me. 'My 
boy,* he said, 'you are not going to be shot to- 
morrow. I believe you when you tell me you could 
not keep awake. I am going to trust you, and send 
you back to your regiment. But I have been put 
to a good deal of trouble on your account. I have 
had to come up here from Washington when I 
have a great deal to do, and what I want to know 
is, how are you going to pay my bill?' There was 
a big lump in my throat; I could scarcely speak. I 
had expected to die, you see, and had kind of got 
used to thinking that way. To have it all changed 
in a minute ! But I got it crowded down, and 
managed to say, 1 am grateful, Mr. Lincoln ! I 
hope I am as grateful as ever a man can be for 
saving my life. But it comes upon me sudden and 
unexpected like. I didn't lay out for it at all. But 
there is some way to pay you, and I will find it after 
a little. There is the bounty in the savings bank. 
I guess we could borrow some money on a mort- 
gage of the farm. There was my pay was some- 
thing, and if he could wait until pay-day I was sure 
the boys would help, so I thought we could make 
it up, if it wasn't more than five or six hundred 
dollars. 'But it is a great deal more than that,' he 
said. Then I said I didn't see just now, but I was 
sure I would find some way — if I lived. 



ANECDOTES 101 

"Then Mr. Lincoln put his hands on my should- 
ers and looked into my face as if he was very sorry 
and said, 'My boy, my bill is a very large one. 
Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the 
farm, nor all your comrades ; There is only one man 
in all the world who can pay it, and his name is 
William Scott. If from this day William Scott does 
his duty, so that, if I was there when he comes 
to die, he can look me in the face as he does 
now, and say, I have kept my promise, and I 
have done my duty as a soldier, then my debt will 
be paid. Will you make that promise and try to 
keep it?" 

William Scott kept his promise. He had this in- 
terview with Lincoln in September, 1861. The fol- 
lowing spring, in March, 1862, Scott was shot in 
battle before the entrenchments at Lee's Mills, in 
the vitinity of Yorktown. A desperate charge was 
ordered, and the Vermont regiment dashed against 
one of the strongest positions in the Confederate 
line. They were repulsed, and retreated under a 
heavy fire, leaving nearly half their number dead 
or wounded in the river and on the opposite shore. 

William Scott was almost the first to reach the 
south bank of the river, the first in the riflepits, 
and the last to retreat. • He recrossed the river 
with a wounded officer on his back — he carried him 
to a place of safety, and returned to assist his 
comrades, who did not agree on the number of 
wounded men saved by him from drowning or cap- 
ture, but all agreed that he had carried the last 
wounded man from the south bank, and was nearly 



102 LINCOLN 

across the stream, when the fire of the rebels was 
concentrated upon him, he staggered with his living 
burden to the shore, and fell literally shot all to 
pieces. 

So it was that he paid his debt to President 
Lincoln. 

Lincoln's Own Stories. 

Lincoln was a tireless worker. He loaded his 
Cabinet and his secretaries to the limit of their 
strength, but was always considerate and thoughtful 
of their comfort. Three of his secretaries lived with 
him in the White House and usually worked far 
into the night, and, even after their labors for the 
day had closed, Lincoln would often wander around 
barefooted and in his night-shirt, too wakeful to 
seek his own bed, and read poems from Burns, jokes 
from Artemas Ward, and the letters of Petroleum 
V. Nasby to the members of his household. 

His sense of humor was his salvation. It was 
the safety valve by which his heart was relieved. 
He was melancholy by nature and inclined to be 
morbid, and it was this keen enjoyment of the ridi- 
culous that enabled him to endure with patience 
his official trials and anxieties. Says Chauncey M. 
Depew in his recollections of Lincoln, "The presi- 
dent threw himself on a lounge and rattled off 
story after story. It was his method of relief, 
without which he might have gone out of his mind, 
and certainly would not have been able to accom- 
plish anything like the amount of work which he 
did. It is the popular supposition that most of 
Lincoln's stories were original, but he said, 'I have 



ANECDOTES 103 

originated but two stories in my life, but I tell 
tolerably well other people's stories.' " 

The stories Lincoln told, and the anecdotes about 
him, are so closely related that it is not worth 
while to try to separate them. They are here re- 
lated with no special regard to sequence. 

It is said that during the darkest days of the 
war a party of prohibitionists called on Lincoln and 
urged with him that the reason why the North did 
not win was because the soldiers drank so much 
whiskey. With a twinkle in his eye Lincoln replied, 
"That seems very unfair on the part of the Lord, 
for the Southerners drink a great deal worse whiskey 
and a great deal more of it than the soldiers of the 
Nofth." 

"Stop Your Boat — Fve Lost My Apple!" 

One day a farmer from the backwoods came to 
the President to tell him that the soldiers had 
stolen some of his hay, and he wanted his claim 
paid at once. 

"Why, my good sir," said Lincoln, "if I should 
attempt to consider every such individual case, I 
should find work enough for twenty Presidents," 
and to illustrate his point he told the following story : 

"In my early days I knew one Jack Chase, who 
was a lumberman on the Illinois, and, when steady 
and sober, the best raftsman on the river. It was 
quite a trick twenty-five years ago to take the logs 
over the rapids, but he was skilful with a raft, and 
always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a 
steamer was put on, and Jack — he's dead now, poor 
fellow ! — was made captain of her. He always used 



104 LINCOLN 

to take the wheel going through the rapids. One 
day, when the boat was plunging and wallowing 
along the boiling current, and Jack's utmost vigilance 
was being exercised to keep her in the narrow chan- 
nel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with, 
'Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop 
your boat a minute — I've lost my apple overboard !' " 

The Swearing Driver. 

On another occasion a poor man from Tennessee 
was waiting at the White House, and General Fisk 
took in him to see the President. The man's son 
was under sentence of death for some military 
offense. Lincoln heard him patiently, took his 
papers, and said he would look into the case and 
report the following day. 

"To-omorrow may be too late !" cried the man 
tragically, and the streaming tears told how much 
he was moved. 

"Come," said Mr. Lincoln, "wait a bit, and I'll 
tell you a story;" and then he told the old man 
General Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as 
follows : 

When Fisk, then Colonel, organized his regiment 
in Missouri he proposed to his men that he should 
do all the swearing for the regiment. They agreed, 
and for a long time he heard of no violation of their 
promise. 

The Colonel had a teamster named John Todd, 
and as the roads were in very poor condition this 
teamster had difficulty in driving his team and keep- 
ing his temper at the same time. One day he hap- 



ANECDOTES 105 

pened to be driving his mule-team through a series 
of particularly bad mud-holes, when, unable to re- 
strain himself any longer, he burst forth with a 
volley of most energetic oaths. When the Colonel 
heard of it he called John to account. 

"John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do 
all the swearing for the regiment?" 

"Yes, I did, Colonel," he replied, "but the fact 
is the swearing had to be done then or not at all, 
and you weren't there to do it." 

The old man was so much amused he laughed 
heartily, and then the President wrote a few words 
on a card which brought tears to the old fellow's 
eyes, for the life of his son had been saved. 

"Glad of It." 

When the telegram from Cumberland Gap reached 
Lincoln that "firing was heard in the direction of 
Knoxville," he remarked that he was "glad of it." 
Some person present, who was thinking intently of 
the peril of Burnside's army, wanted to know why 
Mr. Lincoln was "glad of it." 

"Why, you see," responded the President, "it 
reminds me of Mrs. Sallie Ward, a neighbor of 
mine, who had a very large family. Occasionally one 
of her numerous progeny would be heard crying in 
some out of the way place, upon which Mrs. Ward 
would exclaim, 

"'There's one of my children that isn't dead yet.'" 

The Coon That "Got Away." 
Toward the end of the war some gentlemen who 



106 LINCOLN 

visited Lincoln at the White House asked him 
"what he would do with Jeff Davis." 

"There was a boy in Springfield," replied Mr. Lin- 
coln, "who saved up his money and bought a coon, 
which after the novelty wore off became a great 
nuisance. 

"He was one day leading him through the streets, 
and had his hands full to keep clear of the little 
vixen, who had torn his clothes half off him. At 
length he sat down on the curbstone, completely 
fagged out. A man passing by, noticing his unhappy 
expression, asked him what was the matter. 

" 'Oh,' said the boy, 'this coon is such a terrible 
trouble to me!' 

" 'Why don't you get rid of him, then ?' said the 
gentleman. 

" 'Hush !' said the boy. 'Don't you see he is gnaw- 
ing his rope off? I'm going to let him do it, and 
then I will go home and tell the folks that he 
got away from me!'" 

Root Hog or Die. 

At the so-called peace conference on the steamer 
River Queen in Hampton Roads, Feb. 3, 1865, Mr. 
Hunter, representing the Confederacy, remarked that 
since the slaves had always worked under compul- 
sion, if they were freed they would do no work 
at all, and the South would starve, black and whites 
together, as no work would be done. Said Lincoln, 

"Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal bet- 
ter about the matter than I, for you have always 
lived under the slave system. I can only say, in 



ANECDOTES 107 

reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds 
me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, 
who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very 
large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed 
them; and how to get around this was a puzzle to 
him. At length he hit upon the plan of planting an 
immense field of potatoes, and, when they were 
sufficiently grown, he turned the whole herd into 
the field and let them have full swing, thus saving 
not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but that also 
of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, 
he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting 
his hogs, when a neighbor came along. 

" 'Well, well !' said he. *Mr. Case, this is all very 
fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now. But 
you know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, 
and the ground freezes a foot deep. Then what 
are they going to do?' 

"This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case 
had not taken into account. Butchering time for 
hogs was away on in December or January. He 
scratched his head and at length stammered, 'Well, 
it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't 
see but it will be root hog or die!' " 

Daniel Webster's Dirty Hands. 

One of the most amusing of Mr. Lincoln's stories 
was that of Daniel Webster's hands. 

One day Daniel had done something very naughty 
in school, and was called up by the teacher to be 
punished, the form of punishment being the old- 
fashioned ferruling of the hands. His hands hap- 



108 LINCOLN 

pened to be very dirty, and out of a sense of per- 
sonal shame, on his way to the teacher's desk, he 
spit upon the palm of his right hand and rubbed it 
on his pantaloons. 

" 'Give me your hands, sir,' said the teacher very 
sternly, 

"Out went the right hand, partly cleansed. The 
teacher looked at it a moment, and said, — 

" 'Daniel, if you will find another hand in this 
school as filthy as that, I will let you off this timel' 

"Instantly from behind his back came the left hand. 
'Here it is, sir," was the ready reply. 

"'That will do,' said the teacher, 'for this time; 
you may take your seat, sir.' " 

Miscellaneous Anecdotes. 

Quite as characteristic of Lincoln as his stories, 
are the anecdotes of his witty and humorous remarks 
on various occasions. 

He was greatly pestered by the office-seekers, but 
he never refused to see them, saying "They don't 
want much and get very little. Each one considers 
his business of great importance, and I must gratify 
them. I know how I should feel if I were in their 
place." And when he was attacked with varioloid 
in 1861 he said to his usher, "Tell all the office- 
seekers to come and see me, for now I have some- 
thing that I can give them." 

Mrs. McCulloch and other ladies called at the 

White House one afternoon to attend a reception 

by Mrs. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln said laughingly to 
them, — 



ANECDOTES 109 

"I am always glad to see yon, ladles, for I know 
you don't want anything." 

Mrs. McCulloch replied, "But, Mr. President, I 
do want something; I want you to do something 
very much." 

"Well, what is it?" he asked, adding, "I hope it 
isn't anything I can't do." 

"I want you to suppress the Chicago Times, be- 
cause it does nothing but abuse the administration," 
she replied. 

"Oh, tut, tut! We mustn't abridge the liberties 
of the press or the people. But never mind the 
Chicago Times. The administration can stand it if 
the Times can." 

On another occasion he went to examine a newly 
invented "repeating" gun, which was peculiar in 
that it prevented the escape of gas. After the in- 
spection, he said, 

"Well, I believe this really does what it is repre- 
sented to do. Now, have any of you heard of any 
machine or invention for preventing the escape of 
gas from newspaper establishments?" 

One day he was complaining of the injustice of 
Mr. Greeley's criticisms, when a friend suggested, 

"Why don't you publish the facts in every news- 
paper in the United States? The people will then 
understand your position and your vindication will 
be complete." 

"Yes," said Lincoln, "all the newspapers will pub- 
lish my letter, and so will Greeley. The next day 



110 LINCOLN 

he will comment upon it, and keep it up in that way 
until at the end of three weeks I will be convicted 
out of my own mouth of all the things he charges 
against me. No man, whether he be a private citizen 
or President of the United States, can successfully 
carry on a controversy with a great newspaper and 
escape destruction, unless he owns a newspaper 
equally great with a circulation in the same neighbor- 
hood." 

One day a handsome woman called at the White 
House to get the release of a relative who was in 
prison. She tried to use her personal attractions to 
influence the President. After a little he concluded, 
as he afterwards said, that he was "too soft" to 
deal with her, and sent her over to the War Depart- 
ment with a sealed envelope which contained a card 
on which he had written, "This woman, dear Stan- 
ton, is smarter than she looks to be." 

To another woman, whom he suspected of coming 
to the White House on a pretext, he gave a note ad- 
dressed to Major Ramsey, which read, — 

"My Dear Sir: The lady — bearer of this— says 
she has two sons who want to work. Set them at 
it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit 
that it should be encouraged. A. Lincoln." 

When a delegation of clergymen called to urge 
the appointment of one of their number as consul to 
the Hawaiian Islands on the ground that he was sick 
and needed the change, Lincoln questioned the man 
closely as to his symptoms and then remarked, 



ANECDOTES 111 

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but there are eight 
other men after this place, and every one of them 
is sicker than you are." 

A party of friends from Springfield called at the 
White House one day and told the President what 
an elaborate funeral had been given to a certain 
Illinois politician who was noted for his vanity and 
love of praise. After listening to the end Lincoln 
remarked, 

"If Jim had known he was to have that kind of a 
funeral, he would have died long ago." 

When a deputation called upon the President to 
criticise certain features of his administration, he 
responded as follows : 

"Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were 
worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands 
of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a 
rope: would you shake the cable and keep shouting 
to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter — Blondin, 
stoop a little more — go a little faster — lean a little 
more to the north — lean a little more to the south?* 
No, you would hold your breath as well as your 
tongue, and keep your hands off till he was safe 
over. 

"The government is carrying an immense weight. 
Untold treasures are in our hands. We are doing 
the very best we can. Don't badger us. Keep quiet, 
and we will get you safe across." 

Lincoln also had a strain of severity in him. 

Once an officer attacked General Sherman, calling 

him a bully and a tyrant, unfit to command troops. 



112 LINCOLN 

Lincoln quietly asked if he had any grievance. The 
officer replied that General Sherman had accused 
him of some misconduct and threatened to shoot 
him if it occurred again. 

"If I were in your place," remarked the President 
in a confidential whisper, "I wouldn't repeat that 
offense, because Sherman is a man of his word." 

Lincoln's instinctive love of a joke appears very 
clearly in his humorous remark on hearing of the 
capture of a brigadier-general and twelve army mules 
near Washington, — 

"How unfortunate! I can fill that general's place 
in five minutes, but those mules cost us two hundred 
dollars apiece." 

The President's last story before his assassination 
was that of how the Patagonians eat oysters. Ward 
Lamon had called to ask the President to sign a 
pardon for an old soldier convicted of violating the 
army regulations. 

"Lamon, do you know how the Patagonians eat 
oysters?" suddenly asked the President as he held 
the pen in his hand to write the pardon. 

"I do not, Mr. Lincoln," responded Lamon. 

"It is their habit to open them as fast as they can 
and throw the shells out of the wmdow, and when 
the pile of shells grow to be bigger than the house, 
why, they pick up stakes and move. Now Lamon, 
I have felt like beginning a new pile of pardons, and 
I guess this is a good one to begin on." 



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